LITTLE  BLUE  BOOK  NO.    ^  Q 
Edited  by  E.  Haldeman-Jnliiu     J^  Q^ 


Idle  Thoughts 

of  an 

Idle  Fellow 

Jerome  K.  Jerome 


HALDEMAN-JULIUS  COMPANY 
GIRARD,  KANSAS 


TEN  G1:NT  pocket  series  no.  18 

Edited  by  E.  Haldeman-Julius 

The  Idle  Thoughts 
of  an  Idle  Fello^v 

Jerome  K.  Jerome 


HALDEMAN-JULIUS  COMPANY 
GIRARD,  KANSAS 


ON  BEIiNG  IDLE. 

Now,  this  is  a  subject  on  which  I  flatter 
myself  I  really  am  au  fait.  The  gentleman 
who,  when  I  was  young,  bathed  me  at  wisdom's 
font  for  nine  guineas  a  term — no  extras — used 
to  say  he  never  knew  a  boy  who  could  do  less 
work  in  more  time;  and  I  remember  my  poor 
grandmother  once  incidentally  observing,  in 
the  course  of  an  instruction  upon  the  use  of 
the  Prayer-book,  that  it  was  highly  improbable 
that  I  should  ever  do  much  that  I  ought  not  to 
do,  but  that  she  felt  convinced  beyond  a  doubt 
that  I  should  leave  undone  pretty  well  every- 
thing that  I  ought  to  do. 

I  am  afraid  I  have  somewhat  belied  half  the 
dear  old  lady's  prophecy.  Heaven  help  me! 
I  have  done  a  good  many  things  that  I  ought 
not  to  have  done,  in  spite  of  my  laziness.  But 
I  have  fully  confirmed  the  accuracy  of  her 
judgment  so  far  as  neglecting  much  that  I  ought 
not  to  have  neglected  is  concerned.  Idling  al- 
ways has  been  my  strong  point.  I  take  no" 
credit  to  myself  in  the  matter — it  is  a  gift.  Few 
possess  it.  There  are  plenty  of  lazy  people  and 
plenty  of  slow-coaches,  but  a  genuine  idler  is  a 
rarity.  He  is  not  a  man  who  slouches  about 
with  his  hands  in  his  pockets.  On  the  con- 
trary, his  most  startling  characteristic  is  that 
he  is  always  intensely  busy. 

It  is  impossible  to  enjoy  idling  thoroughly 
unless  one  has  plenty  of  work  to  do.  There  is 
no  fun  in  doing  nothing  when  you  have  noth- 
ing to  do.  Wasting  time  is  merely  an  occupa- 
tion  then,  and  a   most  exhausting  one.     Idle- 


4  IDLE  THOUGHTS  OF 

ness,  like  kisses,  to  be  sweet  must  be  stolen. 

Many  years  ago,  when  I  was  a  young  man, 
I  was  taken  very  ill — I  never  could  see  my- 
self that  much  was  the  matter  with  me,  ex- 
cept that  I  had  a  beastly  cold.  But  I  suppose 
it  was  something  very  serious,  for  the  doctor 
said  that  I  ought  to  have  come  to  him  a  month 
before,  and  that  if  it  (whatever  it  was)  had 
gone  on  for  another  week  he  would  not  have 
answered  for  the  consequences.  It  is  an  ex- 
traordinary thing,  but  I  never  knew  a  doctor 
called  into  any  case  yet  but  what  it  transpired 
that  another  day's  delay  would  have  rendered 
cure  hopeless.  Our  medical  guide,  philosopher, 
and  friend  is  like  the  hero  in  a  melodrama — 
he  always  comes  upon  the  scene  just,  and  only 
just,  in  the  nick  of  time.  It  is  Providence, 
that  is  what  it  is. 

Well,  as  I  was  saying,  I  was  very  ill  and 
was  ordered  to  Buxton  for  a  month,  with  strict 
injunctions  to  do  nothing  whatever  all  the 
while  that  I  was  there.  "Rest  is  what  you  re- 
quire," said  the  doctor,  "perfect  rest." 

It  seemed  a  delightful  prospect.  "This  man 
evidently  understands  my  complaint,"  said  I, 
and  I  pictured  to  myself  a  glorious  time — a 
four  weeks'  dolce  far  niente  with  a  dash  of  ill- 
ness in  it.  Not  too  much  illness,  but  just  ill- 
ness enough — just  sufficient  to  give  it  the 
flavor  of  suffering  and  make  it  poetical.  I 
should  get  up  late,  sip  chocolate,  and  have  my 
breakfast  in  slippers  and  a  dressing-gown.  I 
should  lie  out  in  the  garden  in  a  hammock 
and  read  sentimental  novels  with  a  melancholy 
ending,   until   the   books   should   fall  from  my 


AN  IDLE   FELLOW  5 

listless  hand,  and  I  should  recline  there,  dream- 
ily gazing  into  the  deep  blue  of  the  firmament, 
watching  the  fleecy  clouds  floating  like  white- 
sailed  ships  across  its  depths,  and  listening  to 
the  joyous  song  of  the  birds  and  the  low 
rustling  of  the  trees.  Or,  on  becoming  too 
weak  to  go  out  of  doors,  I  should  sit  propped 
up  with  pillows  at  the  open  window  of  the 
ground-floor  front,  and  look  wasted  and  in- 
teresting, so  that  all  the  pretty  girls  would 
sigh  as  they  passed  by. 

And  twice  a  day  I  should  go  down  in  a  Bath 
chair  to  the  Colonnade  to  drink  the  waters. 
Oh,  those  waters!  I  knew  nothing  about  them 
then,  and  was  rather  taken  with  the  idea. 
"Drinking  the  waters"  sounded  fashionable  and 
Queen  Annefied,  and  I  thought  I  should  like 
them.  But,  ugh!  after  the  first  three  or  four 
mornings.  Sam  Weller's  description  of  them 
as  "having  a  taste  of  warm  flat-irons"  conveys 
only  a  faint  idea  of  their  hideous  nauseousness. 
If  anything  could  make  a  sick  man  get  well 
quickly,  it  would  be  the  knowledge  that  he  must 
drink  a  glassful  of  them  every  day  until  he 
was  recovered.  I  drank  them  neat  for  six 
consecutive  days,  and  they  nearly  killed  me; 
but  after  then  I  adopted  the  plan  of  taking  a 
stiff  glass  of  brandy-and-water  immediately 
on  the  top  of  them,  and  found  much  relief 
hereby.  I  have  been  informed  since,  by  various 
eminent  medical  gentlemen,  that  the  alcohol 
must  have  entirely  counteracted  the  effects  of 
the  chalybeate  properties  contained  in  the 
water.  I  am  glad  I  was  lucky  enough  to  hit 
upon  the  right  thing. 


6  IDLE  THOUGHTS  OF 

But  "drinking  the  waters"  was  only  a  small 
portion  of  the  torture  I  experienced  during  that 
memorable  month — a  month  which  was,  with- 
out exception,  the  most  miserable  I  have  ever 
spent.  During  the  best  part  of  it  I  religiously 
followed  the  doctor's  mandate  and  did  nothing 
whatever,  except  moon  about  the  house  and 
garden  and  go  out  for  two  hours  a  day  in  a 
Bath  chair.  That  did  break  the  monotony  to 
a  certain  extent.  There  is  more  excitement 
about  Bath-chairing — especially  if  you  are  not 
used  to  the  exhilarating  exercise — than  might 
appear  to  the  casual  observer.  A  sense  of 
danger,  such  as  a  mere  outsider  might  not 
understand,  is  ever  present  to  the  mind  of 
the  occupant.  He  feels  convinced  every  minute 
that  the  whole  concern  is  going  over,  a  convic- 
tion which  becomes  especially  lively  whenever 
a  ditch  or  a  stretch  of  newly  macadamized 
road  comes  in  sight.  Every  vehicle  that  passes 
he  expects  is  going  to  run  into  him;  and  he 
never  finds  himself  ascending  or  descending 
a  hill  without  immediately  beginning  to  specu- 
late upon  his  chances,  supposing — as  seems  ex- 
tremely probable — that  the  weak-kneed  con- 
troller of  his  destiny  should  let  go. 

But  even  this  diversion  failed  to  enliven 
after  awhile,  and  the  ennui  became  perfectly 
unbearable.  I  felt  my  mind  giving  way  under 
it.  It  is  not  a  strong  mind,  and  I  thought  It 
would  be  unwise  to  tax  it  too  far.  So  some- 
where about  the  twentieth  morning  I  got  up 
early,  had  a  good  breakfast,  and  v/alked  straight 
off  to  Hayfield,  at  the  foot  of  the  Kinder  Scout 
— a  pleasant,  busy  little  town,  reached  through 


AN  IDLE   FELLOW  7 

a  lo\'ely  yalley*  and  with  two  sweetly  pretty 
women  in  it.  At  least  they  were  sweetly  pretty 
then;  one  passed  me  on  the  bridge  and,  I  think, 
smiled;  and  the  other  was  standing  at  an  open 
door,  making  an  unremunerative  investment 
of  kisses  upon  a  red-faced  baby.  But  it  is 
years  ago,  and  I  dare  say  they  have  both  grown 
stout  and  snappish  since  that  time.  Coming 
back,  I  saw  an  old  man  breaking  stones,  and 
it  roused  such  strong  longing  in  me  to  use  my 
arms  that  I  offered  him  a  drink  to  let  me  take 
his  place.  He  w^as  a  kindly  old  man  and  he 
humored  me.  I  went  for  those  stones  with 
the  accumulated  energy  of  three  weeks,  and  did 
more  in  half  an  hour  than  he  had  done  all  day. 
But  it  did  not  make  him  jealous. 

Having  taken  the  plunge,  I  went  further  and 
further  into  dissipation,  going  out  for  a  long 
walk  every  morning  and  listening  to  the  band 
in  the  pavilion  every  evening.  But  the  days 
still  passed  slowly  notwithstanding,  and  I  was 
heartily  glad  when  the  last  one  came  and  I 
was  being  whirled  away  from  gouty,  consump- 
tive Buxton  to  London  with  its  stern  work 
and  life.  I  looked  out  of  the  carriage  as  we 
rushed  through  Hendon  in  the  evening.  The 
lurid  glare  overhanging  the  mighty  city  seemed 
to  warm  my  heart,  and  when,  later  on,  my  cab 
rattled  out  of  St.  Pancras'  station,  the  old  fa- 
miliar roar  that  came  swelling  up  around  me 
sounded  the  sweetest  music  I  had  heard  for 
many  a  long  day. 

I  certainly  did  not  enjoy  that  month's  idling. 
I  like  idling  when  I  ought  not  to  be  Idling; 
not  when  it  is  the  only  thing  I  have  to  do.    That 


8  IDLE  THOUGHTS  OF 

is  my  pig-headed  nature.  The  time  when  I 
like  best  to  stand  with  my  back  to  the  fire, 
calculating  how  much  I  owe,  is  when  my  desk 
is  heaped  highest  with  letters  that  must  be 
answered  by  the  next  post.  When  I  like  to 
dawdle  longest  over  my  dinner  is  when  I  have  a 
heavy  evening's  work  before  me.  And  if,  for 
some  urgent  reason,  I  ought  to  be  up  par- 
ticularly early  in  the  morning,  it  is  then,  more 
than  at  any  other  time,  that  I  love  to  lie  an 
extra  half-hour  in  bed. 

Ah!  how  delicious  it  is  to  turn  over  and  go 
to  sleep  again:  "just  for  five  minutes."  Is 
there  any  human  being,  I  wonder,  besides  the 
hero  of  a  Sunday-school  "tale  for  boys,"  who 
ever  gets  up  willingly?  There  are  some  men 
to  whom  getting  up  at  the  proper  time  is  an 
utter  impossibility.  If  eight  o'clock  happens  tp 
be  the  time  that  they  should  turn  out,  then 
they  lie  till  half-past.  If  circumstances  change 
and  half-past  eight  becomes  early  enough  for 
them,  then  it  is  nine  before  they  can  rise. 
They  are  like  the  statesman  of  whom  it  was 
said  that  he  was  always  punctually  half  an 
hour  late.  They  try  all  manner  of  schemes. 
They  buy  alarm-clocks  (artful  contrivances  that 
go  off  at  the  wrong  time  and  alarm  the  wrong 
people).  They  tell  Sarah  Jane  to  knock  at  the 
door  and  call  them,  and  Sarah  Jane  does  knock 
at  the  door  and  does  call  them,  and  they  grunt 
back  "awri"  and  then  go  comfortably  to  sleep 
again.  I  knew  one  man  who  would  actually 
get  out  and  have  a  cold  bath;  and  even  that 
was  of  no  use,  for  afterward  he  v/onld  jump 
into  bed  again  to  warm  himself. 


AN   IDLE   FELLOW  « 

I  think  myself  that  I  could  keep  out  of  bed 
all  right  if  J  once  got  out.  It  is  the  wrenching 
away  of  the  head  from  the  pillow  that  I  find 
so  hard,  and  no  amount  of  over-night  determi- 
nation makes  it  easier.  I  say  to  myself,  after 
having  wasted  the  whole  evening,  I'll  get  up 
early  to-morrow  morning;"  and  I  am  thoroughly 
resolved  to  do  so — then.  In  the  morning,  how- 
ever, I  feel  less  enthusiastic  about  the  idea, 
and  reflect  that  it  would  have  been  much  better 
if  I  had  stopped  up  last  night.  And  then  there 
is  the  trouble  of  dressing,  and  the  more  one 
thinks  about  that  the  more  one  wants  to  put 
it  off. 

It  is  a  strange  thing  this  bed,  this  mimic 
grave,  where  we  stretch  our  tired  limbs  and 
sink  away  so  quietly  into  the  silence  and  rest. 
"O  bed,  O  bed,  delicious  bed,  that  heaven  on 
earth  to  the  weary  head,"  as  sang  poor  Hood, 
you  are  a  kind  old  nurse  to  us  fretful  boys  and 
girls.  Clever  and  foolish,  naughty  and  good, 
you  take  us  all  in  your  motherly  lap  and  hush 
our  wayward  crying.  The  strong  man  full  of 
care — the  sick  man  full  of  pain — the  little 
maiden  sobbing  for  her  faithless  lover — like 
children  we  lay  our  aching  heads  on  your  v/hite 
bosom,  and  you  gently  soothe  us  off  to  by-by. 

•Our  trouble  is  sore  indeed  when  you  turn 
away  and  will  not  comfort  us.  How  long  the 
dawn  seems  coming  when  we  ^cannot  sleep! 
Oh!  those  hideous  nights  when  we  toss  and  turn 
in  fever  and  pain,  when  we  lie,  like  living  men 
among  the  dead,  staring  out  into  the  dark  hours 
that  drift  so  slowly  between  us  and  the  light. 
And  oh!  those  still  more  hideous  nights  when 


10  IDLE  THOUGHTS  OF 

we  sit  by  another  in  pain,  when  the  low  fire 
startles  us  every  now  and  then  with  a  falling 
cinder,  and  the  tick  of  the  clock  seems  a 
hammer  beating  out  the  life  that  we  are  watch- 
ing. 

But  enough  of  beds  and  bedrooms.  I  have 
kept  to  them  too  long,  even  for  an  idle  fellow. 
Let  us  come  out  and  have  a  smoke.  That 
wastes  time  just  as  well  and  does  not  look 
CO  bad.  Tobacco  has  been  a  blessing  to  us 
idlers.  What  the  civil-service  clerks  before  Sir 
Walter's  time  found  to  occupy  their  minds 
with  it  is  hard  to  imagine.  I  attribute  the 
quarrelsome  nature  of  the  Middle  Ages  young 
men  entirely  to  the  want  of  the  soothing  weed. 
They  had  no  work  to  do  and  could  not  smoke, 
and  the  consequence  was  they  were  forever 
fighting  and  rowing.  If,  by  any  extraordinary 
chance,  there  was  no  war  going,  then  they  got 
up  a  deadly  family  feud  v/ith  the  next-door 
neighbor,  and  if,  in  spite  of  this,  they  still 
had  a  few  spare  moments  on  their  hands,  they 
occupied  them  with  discussions  as  to  whose 
sweetheart  was  the  best  Icok'ng,  th3  arguments 
employed  on  both  sires  bc'ng  batt'e-axes.  clubs, 
etc.  Questions  of  taste  wg:s  soon  decided  i" 
those  days.  When  a  twelfth-century  youth  fi 
in  love  he  did  not  take  three  pacc?s  ba 
ward,  gaze  into  her  eyes,  and  tell  her  she  was 
too  beautiful  to  live.  He  said  he  would  s'er 
outside  and  s*ee  about  it.  And  if,  when  he 
got  out,  he  met  a  man  and  broke  his  head— 
the  other  man's  head,  I  mean— then  that  proved 
that  hia— the  first  fellow's— girl  was  a  pretty 
girl.    But  if  the  other  fellow  broke  his  head— 


AN  IDLE  FELLOW  11 

not  his  own,  you  know,  but  the  other  fellow's 
— the  other  fellow  to  the  second  fellow,  that  Is, 
because  of  course  the  other  fellow  would  only 
be  the  other  fellow  to  him,  not  the  first  fellow 

•  who — well,  if  he  broke  his  head,  then  Ms  girl 
—not  the  other  fellow's,  but  the  fellow  who 
tvas  the —  Look  here,  if  A  broke  B's  head,  then 
A's  girl  was  a  pretty  girl;  but  if  B  broke  A's 
head,  then  A's  girl  wasn't  a  pretty  girl,  but 
B's  girl  was.  That  was  their  method  of  con- 
ducting art  criticism. 

Nowadays  we  light  a  pipe  and  let  the  girls 

,  fight  it  out  among  themselves. 

They  do  it  very  well.  They  are  getting  to 
do  all  our  work.  They  are  doctors,  and  bar- 
risters, and  artists.  They  manage  theatres, 
and  promote  swindles,  and  edit  newspapers.  I 
am  looking  forward  to  the  time  when  we  men 
shall  have  nothing  to  do  but  lie  in  bed  till 
twelve,  read  two  novels  a  day,  have  nice  little 
five-o'clock  teas  all  to  ourselves,  and  tax  our 
brains  with  nothing  more  trying  than  discus- 
sions upon  the  latest  patterns  in  trousers  and 
arguments  as  to  what  Mr.  Jones'  coat  was  made 
of  and  whether  it  fitted  him.  It  Is  a  glorious 
prospect — for  idle  fellows. 

ON  BEING  IN  LOVE. 
You've  been  in  love,  of  course!  If  not  you've 
got  it  to  come.  Love  is  like  the  measles;  we 
all  have  to  go  through  it.  Also  like  the 
measles,  we  take  it  only  once.  0ns  never  need 
be  afraid  of  catching  it  a  second  time.  The 
man  who  has  had  it  can  go  into  the  most  dan- 
gerous   places    and    play    the    most    foolhardy 


1'^  IDLE  THOUGHTS  OP 

tricks  with  perfect  safety.  He  can  picnic  in 
shady  woods,  ramble  through  leafy  aisles,  and 
linger  on  mossy  seats  to  watch  the  sunset.  He 
fears  a  quiet  country-house  no  more  than  he 
would  his  own  club.  He  can  join  a  family  party 
to  go  down  the  Rhine.  He  can,  to  see  the  last 
of  a  friend,  venture  into  the  very  jaws  of  the 
marriage  ceremony  itself.  He  can  keep  his 
head  through  the  whirl  of  a  ravishing  waltz, 
and  rest  afterward  in  a  dark  conservatory, 
catching  nothing  more  lasting  than  a  cold.  He 
can  brave  a  moonlight  walk  adown  sweet- 
scented  lanes  or  a  twilight  pull  among  the 
somber  rushes.  He  can  get  over  a  stile  with- 
out danger,  scramble  through  a  tangled  hedge 
without  being  caught,  come  down  a  slippery 
path  without  falling.  He  can  look  into  sunny 
eyes  and  not  be  dazzled.  He  listens  to  the 
siren  voices,  yet  sails  on  with  unveered  helm. 
He  clasps  white  hands  in  his,  but  no  electric 
"Lulu"-like  force  holds  him  bound  in  their 
dainty  pressure. 

No,  we  never  sicken  with  love  twice.  Cupid 
spends  no  second  arrow  on  the  same  heart. 
Love's  handmaids  are  our  life-long  friends. 
Respect,  and  admiration,  and  affection,  our 
doors  may  always  be  left  open  for,  but  their 
great  celestial  master,  in  his  royal  progress, 
pays  but  one  visit  and  departs.  We  like,  we 
cherish,  we  are  very,  very  fond  of — but  we 
never  love  again.  A  man's  heart  is  a  firework 
that  once  in  its  tima  flr.slies  heavenward. 
Meteor-like,  it  blazes  for  a  moment  and  lights 
with  i"s  rlory  the  w'lole  world  beneath.  Then 
the  night  cf  cur  g-^r-^'d  conimonplace  life  closes 


AN  IDLE   FELLOW  13 

in  around  it,  and  the  burned-out  case,  falling 
back  to  earth,  lies  useless  and  uncared  for, 
slowly  smoldering  into  ashes.  Once,  breaking 
loose  from  our  prison  bonds,  we  dare,  as 
mighty  old  Prometheus  dared,  to  scale  the 
Olympian  mount  and  snatch  from  Phoebus' 
chariot  the  fire  of  the  gods.  Happy  those  who, 
hastening  down' again  ere  it  dies  out,  can  kindle 
their  earthly  altars  at  its  flame.  Love  is  too 
pure  a  light  to  burn  long  among  the  noisome 
gases  that  we  breathe,  but  before  it  is  choked 
out  we  may  use  it  as  a  torch  to  ignite  the  cozy 
fire  of  affection. 

And,  after  all,  that  warming  glow  is  more 
3uited  to  our  cold  little  back  parlor  of  a  world 
:han  is  the  burning  spirit  love.  Love  should  be 
the  vestal  fire  of  some  mighty  temple — some 
vast  dim  fane  whose  organ  music  is  the  rolling 
of  the  spheres.  Affection  will  burn  cheerily 
when  the  white  flame  of  love  is  flickered  out. 
Affection  is  a  fire  that  can  be  fed  from  day  to 
day  and  be  piled  up  ever  higher  as  the  wintry 
years  draw  nigh.  Old  men  and  w^omen  can  sit 
by  it  with  their  thin  hands  clasped,  the  little 
children  can  nestle  down  in  front,  the  friend 
and  neighbor  has  his  welcome  corner  by  its 
side,  and  even  shaggy  Fido  and  sleek  Titty 
can  toast  their  noses  at  the  bars. 

Let  us  heap  the  coals  of  kindness  upon  that 
fire.  Throw  on  your  pleasant  words,  your 
gentle  pressures  of  the  hand,  your  thoughtful 
and  unselfish  deeds.  Fan  it  with  good-humor, 
patience,  and  forbearance.  You  can  let  the 
wind  blow  and  the  rain  fall  unheeded  then,  for 
your  hearth  will  be  warm  and  bright,  and  the 


14  IDLE  THOUGHTS  OF 

faces  round  it  will  m:;ke  sunshine  in  spite  of 
the  clouds  without. 

I  am  afraid,  dear  Edwin  and  Angelina,  you 
expect  too  much  from  love.  You  think  there 
is  enough  of  your  littla  hearts  to  feed  this 
fierce,  devourin:!  passion  for  all  your  long  lives. 
Ah,  young  folk!  don't  rely  too  much  upon  that 
unsteady  flicker.  It  will  dwindle  and  dwindle 
as  the  months  roll  on,  and  there  is  no  re- 
plenishing the  fuel.  You  will  watch  it  die  out 
in  anger  and  disappointment.  To  each  it  will 
seem  that  it  is  the  other  who  is  growing  colder. 
Edwin  sees  with  bitterness  that  Angelina  no 
longer  runs  to  the  gate  to  meet  him,  all  smiles 
and  blushes;  and  when  he  has  a  ccugh  now 
she  doesn't  begin  to  cry  and,  puttinjj  her  arms 
round  his  neck,  say  that  she  cannot  live  with- 
out him.  Tha  most  she  wi'l  probably  do  is  to 
suggest  a  lozen-e,  and  even  that  in  a  tone  im- 
plying th-t  it  is  the  no^"se  mere  th"n  anything 
else  she  is  anxious  to  get  rid  of. 

Poor  little  Angelina,  too,  sheds  silent  tears, 
for  Edwin  has  given  up  carrying  her  old  hand- 
kerchief in  the  inside  pocket  of  his  waistcoat. 

Both  are  astonished  at  the  falling  off  in  the 
other  one,  but  neither  sees  their  own  change. 
If  the:^  did  they  would  not  suffer  as  they  do. 
They  v/ould  look  for  the  cause  in  the  right  quar- 
ter—in the  littleness  of  poor  human  nature- — 
join  hands  over  their  common  failing,  and  start 
building  their  house  anew  on  a  more  earthly 
and  enduring  founda<^ion.  But  we  are  so  blind 
to  our  own  shortcomings,  so  wide  awake  to 
those  of  others.  Everything  that  happens  to 
U9  is  always  the  other  person's  fault,    Angelina 


AN  IDLE  FELLOW  15 

would  have  gone  on  loving  Edwin  forever  and 
ever  and  ever  if  only  Edwin  had  not  grown  so 
strange  and  different.  Edwin  would  have 
adored  Angelina  through  eternity  if  Angelina 
had  only  remained  the  same  as  when  he  first 
adored  her. 

It  is  a  cheerless  hour  for  you  both  when  the 
lamp  of  love  has  gone  out  and  the  fire  of  af- 
fection is  not  yet  'lit,  and  you  have  to  grope 
about  in  the  cold,  raw  dawn  of  life  to  kindle 
it.  God  grant  it  catches  light  before  the  day 
Is  too  far  spent.  Many  sit  shivering  by  the 
dead  coals  till  night  comes. 

But,  there,  of  what  use  is  it  to  preach?  Who 
that  feels  the  rush  of  young  love  through  his 
veins  can  think  It  will  ever  flow  feeble  and 
slow!  To  the  boy  of  twenty  it  seems  impos- 
sible that  he  will  not  love  as  wildly  at  sixty 
as  he  does  then.  He  cannot  call  to  mind  any 
middle-aged  or  elderly  gentleman  of  his  ac- 
quaintance who  Is  known  to  exhibit  symptoms 
of  frantic  attachment,  but  that  does  not  Inter- 
fere in  his  belief  in  himself.  His  love  will 
never  fail,  whoever  else's  may.  Nobody  ever 
loved  as  he  loves,  and  so,  of  course,  the  rest 
of  the  world's  experience  can  be  no  guide  in 
his  case.  Alas!  alas!  ere  thirty  he  has  joined 
the  ranks  of  the  sneerers.  It  Is  not  his  fault. 
Our  passions,  both  the  good  and  bad,  cease 
with  our  blushes.  We  do  not  hate,  nor  grieve, 
nor  joy,  nor  despair  in  our  thirties  like  we  did 
in  our  teens.  Disappointment  does  not  sug- 
gest suicide,  and  we  quaff  success  without 
intoxication. 

We   take  all  things   in  a   minor  key  as  we 


16  IDLE  THOUGHTS  OF 

grow  older.  There  are  few  majestic  passages 
in  the  later  acts  of  life's  opera.  Ambition  takes 
a  less  ambitious  aim.  Honor  becomes  more 
reasonable  and  conveniently  adapts  itself  to 
circumstances.  And  love — love  dies,  "Irrever- 
ence for  the  dreams  of  youth"  soon  creeps  like 
a  killing  frost  upon  our  hearts.  The  tender 
shoots  and  the  expanding  flowers  are  nipped 
and  withered,  and  of  a  vine  that  yearned  to 
stretch  its  tendrils  round  the  world  there  is 
left  but  a  sapless  stump. 

My  fair  friends  will  deem  this  rank  heresy, 
I  know.  So  far  from  a  man's  not  loving  after 
he  has  passed  boyhood,  it  is  not  till  there  is 
a  good  deal  of  gray  in  his  hair  that  thev  think 
his  protestations  at  all  worthy  of  attention. 
Young  ladies  take  their  notions  of  our  sex  from 
the  novels  written  by  their  own,  and  compared 
with  the  monstrosities  that  masquerade  for 
men  in  the  pages  of  that  nightmare  literature, 
Pythagoras'  plucked  bird  and  Frankenstein's 
demon  were  fair  average  specimens  of  hu- 
manity. 

In  these  so-called  books,  the  chief  lover,  or 
Greek  god,  as  he  is  admiringly  referred  to — by 
the  way,  they  do  not  say  which  "Greek  god"  it 
is  that  the  gentleman  bears  such  a  striking  like- 
ness to;  it  might  be  hump-backed  Vulcan,  or 
double-faced  Janus,  or  even  driveling  Silenus, 
the  god  of  abstruse  mysteries.  He  resembles 
the  whole  family  of  them,  however,  in  being  a 
blackguard,  and  perhaps  this  is  what  is  meant. 
To  even  the  little  manliness  his  classical  pro- 
totypes possessed,  though,  he  can  lay  no  claim 
whatever,  being  a  listless  effeminate  noodle,  on 


AN  IDLE   FELLOW  17 

the  shady  side  of  forty.  But  oh  I  the  depth  and 
strength  of  this  elderly  party's  emotion  for 
some  bread-and-butter  school-girl!  Hide  your 
heads,  ye  young  Romeos  and  Leanders!  this 
Z)Za.se  old  beau  loves  with  an  hysterical  fervor 
that  requires  four  adjectives  to  every  noun  to 
properly  describe. 

It  is  well,  dear  ladies,  for  us  old  sinners  that 
you  study  only  books.  Did  you  read  mankind, 
you  would  know  that  the  lad's  shy  stammering 
tells  a  truer  tale  than  our  bold  eloquence.  A 
boy's  love  comes  from  a  full  heart;  a  man's 
is  more  often  the  result  of  a  full  stomach.  In- 
deed, a  man's  sluggish  current  may  not  be 
called  love,  compared  with  the  rushing  fountain 
that  wells  up  when  a  boy's  heart  is  struck  with 
the  heavenly  rod.  If  you  would  taste  love, 
drink  of  the  pure  stream  that  youth  pours  out 
at  your  feet.  Do  not  wait  till  it  has  become  a 
muddy  river  before  you  stoop  to  catch  its 
waves. 

Or  is  it  that  you  like  its  bitter  flavor — that 
the  clear,  limpid  v/ater  is  insipid  to  your  palate 
and  that  the  pollution  of  its  after-course  gives 
it  a  relish  to  your  lips?  Must  we  believe  those 
who  tell  us  that  a  hand  foul  with  the  filth  of  a 
shameful  life  is  the  only  one  a  young  girl  cares 
to  be  caressed  by? 

That  is  the  teaching  that  is  bawled  out  day 
by  day  from  between  those  yellow  covers.  Do 
they  ever  pause  to  think,  I  wonder,  those  devil's 
lady-helps,  what  mischief  they  are  doing  crawl- 
ing about  God's  garden,  and  telling  childish 
Eves  and  silly  Adams  that  sin  is  sweet  and 
that  decency  is  ridiculous  and  vulgar?     How 


18  IDLE  THOUGHTS  OF 

many  an  innocent  girl  do  they  not  degrade  into 
an  evil-minded  woman?  To  liow  many  a  weak 
lad  do  they  not  point  out  the  dirty  by-path  as 
the  shortest  cut  to  a  maiden's  heart?  It  is  not 
as  if  they  wrote  of  life  as  it  really  is.  Speak 
truth,  and  right  will  take  care  of  Itself.  But 
their  pictures  are  coarse  daubs  painted  from 
the  sickly  fancies  of  their  own  diseased  imagi- 
nation. • 

We  want  to  think  of  women  not — as  their 
own  sex  Avould  show  them — as  Loreleis  luring 
us  to  destruction,  but  as  good  angels  beckon- 
ing us  upward.  They  have  more  power  for 
good  or  evil  than  they  dream  of.  It  is  just  at 
the  very  age  when  a  man's  character  is  form- 
ing that  he  tumbles  into  love,  and  then  the  lass 
he  loves  has  the  making  or  marring  of  him. 
Unconsciously  he  molds  himself  to  what  she 
would  have  him,  good  or  bad.  I  am  sorry  to 
have  to  be  ungallant  enough  to  say  that  I  do 
not  think  they  always  use  their  influence  for 
the  best.  Too  often  the  female  world  is 
bounded  hard  and  fast  within  the  limits  of  the 
commonplace.  Their  Ideal  hero  is  a  prince  of 
littleness,  and  to  become  that  many  a  pow- 
erful mind,  enchanted  by  love,  is  "lost  to  life 
and  use  and  name  and  fame." 

And  yet,  women,  you  could  make  us  so  much 
better  if  you  only  would.  It  rests  with  you, 
more  than  with  all  the  preachers,  to  roll  this 
world  a  little  nearer  heaven.  Chivalry  is  not 
dead:  it  only  sleeps  for  want  of  work  to  do. 
It  is  you  who  must  wake  it  to  noble  deeds. 
You  must  be  worthy  of  knightly  worship. 

You  must  be  higher  than  ourselves.     It  was 


i 


AN   IDLE   FELLOW  19 

for  Una  that  .tho  Red  Cross  Knight  did  v/ar. 
For  no  pa  nted,  miming  court  dame  could  the 
dragon  have  be3n  siain.  Oh,  L.dies  fair,  be  fair 
in  mind  and  soul  r,s  well  c.s  f:.ce,  so  that  brave 
l^nights  may  win  cl^ry  in  your  service!  Oh, 
v.'oraan  throw  off  your  disguising  cloaks  of 
selfishness,  effrontery,  and  aff2ctatlon!  Stand 
forth  once  more  a  queen  in  your  royal  robe  of 
simple  purity.  A  thousand  swords,  now  rust- 
ing in  ignoble  slo'h,  shall  leap  from  their  scab- 
bards to  do  battle  for  your  honor  against 
wrong.  A  thousand  Sir  Rolands  shall  lay  lance 
in  rest,  and  Fear,  Avarice,  Pleasure,  and  Ambi- 
tion shall  go  down  in  the  dnst  before  your 
colors. 

What  noble  deeds  were  we  not  ripe  for  in 
the  days  when  we  loved?  What  noble  lives 
could  we  not  have  lived  for  her  s:ke?  Our  love 
was  a  religion  v/3  could  have  died  for.  It  was 
no  m-^re  human  ere-^ture  like  ourselves  that 
we  adored.  It  was  a  qu«en  that  we  paid  hom- 
age to,  a  goddess  that  we  worshiped. 

And  how  madly  we  did  worship!  And  how 
sweet  it  was  to  worship!  Ah,  lad,  cherish 
love's  young  dream  while  it  lasts!  You  will 
know  too  soon  how  truly  little  Tom  Moore  sang 
when  he  said  that  there  was  nothing  half  so 
sweet  in  life.  Even  when  it  brines  m.isery  it 
is  a  wild,  romantic  misery,  all  unlike  the  dull, 
worldly  pain  of  after-sorrows.  When  you  have 
lost  her — when  the  light  is  gone  out  from  your 
life  and  the  world  stretches  before  you  a  long, 
dark  horror,  even  then  a  half-enchantment 
mingles  with  your  despair. 

And  who  would  not  risk  its  terrors  to  gain 


20  IDLE  THOUGHTS   OF 

its  raptures?  Ah,  what  raptures  they  were! 
The  mere  recollection  thrills  you.  How  deli- 
cious it  was  to  tell  her  that  you  loved  her,  that 
you  lived  for  her,  that  you  would  die  for  her! 
How  you  did  rave,  to  be  sure,  what  floods  of 
extravagant  nonsense  you  poured  forth,  and 
oh,  how  cruel  it  was  of  her  to  pretend  not  to 
believe  you!  In  what  awe  you  stood  of  her. 
How  miserable  you  were  when  you  had  of- 
fended her!  And  yet,  how  pleasant  to  be 
bullied  by  her  and  to  sue  for  pardon  without 
having  the  slightest  notion  of  what  your  fault 
was!  How  dark  the  world  was  when  she 
snubbed  you,  as  she  often  did,  the  little  rogue, 
just  to  see  you  look  wretched;  how  sunny  when 
she  smiled!  How  jealous  you  were  of  every 
one  about  her!  How  you  hated  every  man  she 
shook  hands  with,  every  woman  she  kissed — 
the  maid  that  did  her  hair,  the  boy  that  cleaned 
her  shoes,  the  dog  she  nursed — though  you  had 
to  be  respectful  to  the  last-named!  How  you 
looked  forward  to  seeing  her,  how  stupid  you 
were  when  you  did  see  her,  staring  at  her  with- 
out saying  a  word!  How  impossible  it  was  for 
you  to  go  out  at  any  time  of  the  day  or  night 
without  finding  yourself  eventually  opposite 
her  windows!  You  hadn't  pluck  enough  to  go 
in,  but  you  hung  about  the  corner  and  gazed 
at  the  outside.  Oh,  if  the  house  had  only 
caught  fire — it  was  insured,  so  it  wouldn't  have 
mattered — and  you  could  have  rushed  in  and 
saved  her  at  the  risk  of  your  life,  and  have 
been  terribly  burned  and  injured!  Anything 
to  serve  her.  Even  in  little  things  that  was  so 
sweet.    How  you  Avould  watch  her,  spaniel-like, 


AN  IDLE  FELLOW  21 

to  anticipate  her  slightest  wish!  How  proud 
you  were  to  do  her  bidding!  How  delightful 
it  was  to  be  ordered  about  by  her!  To  devote 
your  whole  life  to  her  and  to  never  think  of 
yourself  seemed  such  a  simple  thing.  You 
would  go  without  a  holiday  to  lay  a  humble 
offering  at  her  shrine,  and  felt  more  than  re- 
paid if  she  only  deigned  to  accept  it.  How 
precious  to  you  was  everything  that  she  had 
hallowed  by  her  touch — her  little  glove,  the 
ribbon  she  had  worn,  the  rose  that  had  nestled 
in  her  hair  and  whose  withered  leaves  still 
mark  the  poems  you  never  care  to  look  at  now. 
And  oh,  how  beautiful  she  was,  how  won- 
drous beautiful!  It  was  as  some  angel  enter- 
ing the  room,  and  all  else  became  plain  and 
earthly.  She  was  too  sacred  to  be  touched. 
It  seemed  almost  presumption  to  gaze  at  her. 
You  would  as  soon  have  thought  of  kissing 
her  as  of  sinnring  comic  songs  in  a  cathedral. 
It  was  desecration  enough  to  kneel  and  tim- 
idly raise  the  gracious  little  hand  to  your  lips. 
.  Ah,  those  foolish  days,  those  foolish  days 
when  we  were  unselfish  and  pure-minded; 
those  foolish  days  when  our  simple  hearts  were 
full  of  truth,  and  faith,  and  reverence!  Ah, 
those  foolish  days  of  noble  longings  and  of 
noble  strivings!  And  oh,  these  wise,  clever 
days  when  we  know  that  money  is  the  only 
prize  worth  striving  for,  when  we  believe  in 
nothing  else  but  meanness  and  lies,  when  we 
care  for  no  living  creature  but  ourselves! 

ON  BEING  IN  THE  BLUES. 
I   can    enjoy   feeling   melancholy,    rnd   there 


22  IDLE  THOUGHTS  OP 

la  a  good  deal  of  satisfaction  about  being  thor- 
oughly miserable;  but  nobody  likes  a  fit  of  the 
blues.  Nevertheless,  everybody  has  them;  not- 
withstanding which,  nobody  can  tell  why. 
There  is  no  accounting  for  them.  You  are  just 
as  likely  to  have  one  on  the  day  after  you  have 
come  into  a  large  fortune  as  on  the  day  after 
you  have  left  your  new  silk  umbrella  in  the 
train.  Its  effect  upon  you  is  somewhat  similar 
to  what  would  probably  be  produc3d  by  a  com- 
bined attach  of  toothache,  indigestion,  and  cold 
in  the  head.  You  become  stupid,  restless,  and 
irritable;  rude  to  strangers  and  dangerous  to- 
ward your  friends;  clumsy,  maudlin,  and  quar- 
relsome; a  nuisance  to  yourself  and  everybody 
about  you. 

While  it  is  on  you  can  do  nothing  and  think 
of  nothing,  though  feeling  at  the  time  bound  to 
do  something.  You  can't  sit  still,  so  put  on 
your  hat  and  go  for  a  walk;  but  before  you 
get  to  the  corner  of  the  street  you  wish  you 
hadn't  come  out  and  you  turn  back.  You  open 
a  book  and  try  to  read,  but  you  find  Shake- 
speare trite  and  commonplace,  Dickens  Is  dull 
and  prosy,  Thackeray  a  bore,  and  Carlyle  too 
sentimental.  You  throw  the  book  aside  and 
call  the  author  names.  Then  you  "shoo"  the 
cat  out  of  the  room  and  kick  the  door  to  after 
her.  You  think  :'ou  will  write  your  letters, 
but  after  sticking  at  "Dearest  Auntie:  I  find 
I  have  five  minutes  to  spare,  and  so  hasten  to 
write  to  you,"  for  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  without 
being  able  to  think  of  another  sentence,  you 
tumble  the  paper  into  the  desk,  fling  the  wet 
pen   down   upon   the  table-cloth,   and   start  up 


AX   IDLE    FELLOW  23 

with  the  resolution  of  going  to  see  tlie  Thomp- 
sons. While  pulling  on  your  r  loves,  however, 
it  occurs  to  you  that  the  Thompsons  are  idiots; 
that  they  never  have  supper;  and  that  you  will 
be  expected  to  jump  the  baby.  You  curse  the 
Thompsons  and  decide  not  to  go. 

By  this  time  you  feel  completely  crushed. 
You  bury  your  face  in  your  hands  and  think 
you  would  like  to  die  and  go  to  heaven.  You 
picture  to  yourself  your  own  sick-bed,  with 
all  your  friends  and  relations  standing  round 
you  weeping.  You  bless  them,  all,  especially 
the  young  and  pretty  ones.  They  will  value 
you  when  you  are  gone,  so  you  say  to  yourself, 
and  learn  too  late  what  they  have  lost;  and 
you  bitterly  contrast  their  presumed  regard  for 
you  then  with  their  decided  want  of  veneration 
now. 

These  reflections  make  you  feel  a  little  more 
cheerful,  but  only  for  a  brief  period;  for  the 
next  moment  you  think  what  a  fool  you  must 
be  to  imagine  for  an  instant  that  anybody 
would  be  sorry  at  anything  that  might  happen 
to  you.  Who  would  care  two  straws  (whatever 
precise  amount  of  care  two  straws  may  repre- 
sent) whether  you  are  blown  up,  or  hung  up, 
or  married,  or  drowned?  Nobody  cares  for 
you.  You  never  have  been  p:"operly  appre- 
ciated, never  met  with  your  due  deserts  in  any 
one  particular.  You  review  the  whole  of  your 
past  life,  and  it  is  painfully  apparent  that  you 
have  been  ill-used  from  '^our  cradle. 

Half  an  hour's  indulgence  in  these  considera- 
tfons  works  you  up  into  a  state  of  savage  fury 
against   everybody   snd.   everything",   especially 


2i  IDLE   THOQGHTS   OF 

yourself,  whom  anatomical  reasons  alone  pre- 
vent your  kicking.  Bed-time  at  last  comes,  to 
save  you  from  doing  something  rash,  and  you 
spring  upstairs,  throw  off  your  clothes,  leaving 
them  strewn  all  over  the  room,  blow  out  the 
candle,  and  jump  into  bed  as  if  you  had  backed 
yourself  for  a  heavy  wager  to  do  the  whole 
thing  against  time.  There  you  toss  and  tumble 
about  for  a  couple  of  hours  or  so,  varying  the 
monotony  by  occasionally  jerking  the  clothes 
off  and  getting  out  and  putting  them  on  again. 
At  length  you  drop  into  an  uneasy  and  fitful 
slumber,  have  had  dreams,  and  wake  up  late 
the  next  morning. 

At  least,  this  is  all  we  poor  single  men  can 
do  under  the  circumstances.  Married  men 
bully  their  wives,  grumble  at  the  dinner,  and 
insist  on  the  children's  going  to  bed.  All  of 
which,  creating  as  it  does,  a  good  deal  of  dis- 
turbance in  the  house,  must  be  a  great  relief 
to  the  feelings  of  a  man  in  the  blues,  rows  be- 
ing the  only  form  of  amusement  in  which  he 
can  take  any  interest. 

The  symptoms  of  the  infirmity  are  much 
the  same  in  everj^  case,  but  the  affliction  itself 
is  variously  termed.  The  poet  says  that  "a 
feeling  of  sadness  comes  o'er  me."  'Arry  refers 
to  the  heavings  of  his  wayward  heart  by  con- 
fiding to  Jimee  that  he  has  "got  the  blooming 
hump."  Your  sister  doesn't  know  what  is  the 
matter  with  her  tonight.  She  feels  out  of  sorts 
altogether  and  hopes  nothing  is  going  to  hap- 
pen. The  every-day  young  man  is  "so  awful 
glad  to  meet  you,  old  fellow,"  for  he  does  "feel 
so  jolly  miserable  this  evening."     As  for  my- 


AN  IDLE   FELLOW  25 

self,  I  generally  say  that  "I  have  a  strange, 
unsettled  feeling  tonight"  and  "think  I'll  go 
out." 

By  the  way,  it  never  does  come  except  in 
the  evening.  In  the  sun-time,  when  the  world 
is  bounding  forward  full  of  life,  we  cannot  stay 
to  sigh  and  sulk.  The  roar  of  the  working  day 
drowns  the  voices  of  the  elfin  sprites  that  are 
ever  singing  their  low-toned  miserere  in  our 
ears.  In  the  day  we  are  angry,  disappointed, 
or  indignant,  but  never  "in  the  blues"  and 
never  melancholy.  When  things  go  wrong  at 
t2n  o'clock  in  the  morning  we — or  rather  you 
— swear  and  knock  the  furniture  about!  but 
if  the  misfortune  comes  at  ten  p.  m.,  we  read 
poetry  or  sit  in  the  dark  and  think  what  a 
hollow  world  this  is. 

But,  as  a  rule,  it  is  not  trouble  that  makes 
us  melancholy.  The  actuality  is  too  stern  a 
thing  for  sentiment.  We  linger  to  weep  over 
a  picture,  but  from  the  original  we  should 
quickly  turn  our  eyes  away.  There  is  no  pathos 
in  real  misery:  no  luxury  in  real  grief.  We  do 
not  toy  with  sharp  swords  nor  hug  a  gnawing 
fox  to  our  brsast  for  choice.  When  a  man 
or  woman  loves  to  brood  over  a  sorrow  and 
takes  care  to  keep  it  green  in  their  memory, 
you  may  be  sure  it  is  no  longer  a  pain  to  them. 
However  they  may  have  suffered  from  it  at 
first,  the  recollection  has  become  by  then  a 
pleasure.  Many  dear  old  ladies  who  daily  look 
at  tiny  shoes  lying  in  lavender-scented  drawers, 
and  weep  as  they  think  of  the  tiny  feet  whose 
toddling  march  is  done,  and  sv/eet-faced  young 
ones  who  place  each  night  beneath  their  pillow 


26  IDLE   THOUGHTS   OF 

some  lock  that  once  curled  on  a  boyish  head 
that  the  salt  waves  have  kissed  to  death,  will 
call  me  a  nasty  cynical  brule  and  say  I'm  talk- 
ing nonsense;  but  I  believe,  nevertheless,  that 
if  they  will  ask  themselves  truthfully  w^hether 
they  find  it  unpleasant  to  dwell  thus  on  their 
sorrow,  they  will  be  compelled  to  answer 
"No."  Tears  are  as  sweet  as  laughter  to  some 
natures.  The  proverbial  Englishman,  we  know 
from  old  chronicler  Froissart,  takes  his  pleas- 
ure sadly,  and  the  Englishwoman  goes  a  step 
further  and  takes  her  pleasures  in  sadness 
itself. 

I  am  not  sneering.  I  would  not  for  a  moment 
sneer  at  anything  that  helps  to  keep  hearts 
tender  in  this  hard  old  world.  We  men  are 
cold  and  common-sensed  enough  for  all;  we 
would  not  have,  women  the  same.  No,  no, 
ladies  dear,  be  alv/avs  sentimental  and  soft- 
her.rted,  as  you  are — be  the  soothing  batter 
to  our  coarse  dry  bread.  Besides,  sentiment 
is  to  women  what  fun  is  to  us.  They  do  not 
care  for  our  humor,  surely  it  would  be  unfair 
to  deny  them  their  grief.  And  who  shall  say 
that  their  mode  of  enjoyment  is  not  as  sensible 
as  ours?  Why  assume  that  a  doubled-up  body, 
a  contorted,  purple  face,  and  a  gaping  mouth, 
emitting  a  series  of  e?.r-splitting  shrieks  points 
to  a  state  of  more  intelligent  happiness  than 
a  pensive  face  reposing  upon  a  little  white 
hand,  and  a  pair  of  gentle  tear-dimmed  eyes 
looking  back  through  Time's  dark  avenue  upon 
a  fading  past? 

I  am  glad  v;hen  I  see  Regret  walked  with  as 
a  friend — glad  becausa  I  knov/  the  saltness  has 


AN  IDLE  FELLOW  27 

been  washed  from  out  the  tears,  and  that  the 
sting  must  have  been  plucked  from  the  beau- 
tiful face  of  Sorrow  ere  we  dare  press  her  pale 
lips  to  ours.  Time  has  laid  his  healing  hand 
upon  the  wound  when  we  can  look  back  upon 
the  pain  we  once  fainted  under  and  no  bitter- 
ness or  despair  rises  in  our  hearts.  The  burden 
is  no  longer  heavy  when  we  have  for  our  past 
troubles  only  the  same  sweet  mingling  of  pleas- 
ure and  pity  that  we  feel  when  old  knight- 
hearted  Colonel  NTewcome  answers  ''adsum"  to 
the  great  roll-call,  or  when  Tom  and  Maggie 
Tulliver,  clasping  hands  through  the  mists  that 
have  divided  them,  go  down,  locked  in  each 
other's  arms,  beneath  the  swollen  waters  of  the 
Floss. 

Talking  of  poor  Tom  and  Maggie  Tulliver 
brings  to  my  mind  a  saying  of  George  Eliot's  in 
connection  with  this  subject  of  melancholy. 
She  speaks  somewhere  of  the  "sadness  of  a 
summer's  evening."  How  wonderfully  true — 
like  everything  that  came  from  that  wonderful 
pen — the  observation  is!  Who  has  not  felt  the 
sorrowful  enchantment  of  those  lingering  sun- 
sets? The  world  belongs  to  Melancholy  then, 
a  thoughtful  deep-eyed  maiden  who  loves  not 
the  glare  of  day.  It  is  not  till  "light  thickens 
and  the  crow  v/ings  to  the  rocky  wood"  that 
she  steals  forth  from  her  groves.  Her  palace 
is  in  twilight  land.  It  is  there  she  meets  us. 
At  her  shadowy  gate  she  takes  our  hand  in 
hers  and  walks  beside  us  through  her  mystic 
realm.  We  see  no  form,  but  seem  to  hear  the 
rustling  of  her  wings. 

Even  in  the  toiling  hum-drum  city  her  spirit 


28  IDLE  THOUGHTS  OF 

comes  to  us.  There  is  a  somber  presence  in 
each  long,  dull  street;  and  the  dark  river 
creeps  ghost-like  under  the  black  arches,  as  if 
bearing  some  hidden  secret  beneath  its  muddy- 
waves. 

In  the  silent  country,  vi^hen  the  trees  and 
hedges  loom  dim  and  blurred  against  the  rising 
night,  and  the  bat's  wing  flutters  in  our  face, 
and  the  landrail's  cry  sounds  drearily  across 
the  fields,  the  spell  sinks  deeper  still  into  our 
hearts.  We  seem  in  that  hour  to  be  standing 
by  some  unseen  death-bed,  and  in  the  swaying 
of  the  elms  we  hear  the  sigh  of  the  dying  day. 

A  solemn  sadness  reigns.  A  great  peace  is 
around  us.  In  its  light  our  cares  of  the  work- 
ing day  grow  small  and  trivial,  and  bread  and 
cheese — ay,  and  even  kisses — do  not  seem  the 
only  things  worth  striving  for.  Thoughts  we 
cannot  speak  but  only  listen  to  flood  in  upon 
us,  and  standing  in  the  stillness  under  earth's 
darkening  dome,  we  feel  that  we  are  greater 
than  our  petty  lives.  Hung  round  with  those 
dusky  curtains,  the  world  is  no  longer  a  mere 
dingy  workshop,  but  a  stately  temple  wherein 
man  may  worship,  and  where  at  times  in  the 
dimness  his  groping  hands  touch  God's. 

ON  BEING  HARD  UP. 
It  is  a  most  remarkable  thing.  I  sat  down 
with  the  full  intention  of  writing  something 
clever  and  original;  but  for  the  life  of  me  I 
can't  think  of  anything  clever  and  original — 
at  least,  not  at  this  moment.  The  only  thing 
I  can  think  about  now  is  being  hard  up.  I 
suppose  having  my  hands   in  my  pockets  has 


AN  IDLE   FELLOW  29 

ma,de  me  think  about  this.  I  always  do  sit 
with  my  hands  in  my  pockets  except  when  I 
am  in  the  company  of  my  sisters,  my  cousins, 
or  my  aunts;  and  they  kick  up  such  a  shindy 
— I  should  say  expostulate  so  eloquently  upon 
the  subject — that  I  have  to  give  in  and  take 
them  out — my  hands  I  mean.  The  chorus  to 
their  objections  is  that  it  is  not  gentlemanly. 
I  am  hanged  if  I  can  see  why.  I  could  under- 
stand its  not  being  considered  gentlemanly  to 
put  your  hands  in  other  people's  pockets  (espec- 
ially by  the  other  people),  but  how,  O  ye 
sticklers  for  what  looks  this  and  what  looks 
that,  can  putting  his  hands  in  his  own  pockets 
make  a  man  less  gentle?  Perhaps  you  are 
right,  though.  Now  I  come  to  think  of  it,  I 
have  heard  some  people  grumble  most  savagely 
when  doing  it.  But  they  were  mostly  old 
gentlemen.  We  young  fellows,  as  a  rule,  are 
never  quite  at  ease  unless  we  have  our  hands 
in  our  pockets.  We  are  awkward  and  shifty. 
We  are  like  what  a  music-hall  Lion  Comique 
would  be  without  his  opera-hat,  if  such  a  thing 
can  be  imagined.  But  let  us  put  our  hands  in 
our  trousers  pockets,  and  let  there  be  some 
small  change  in  the  right-hand  one  and  a 
bunch  of  keys  in  the  left,  and  we  will  face  a 
female  post-office  clerk. 

It  is  a  little  difficult  to  know  what  to  do 
with  your  hands,  even  in  your  pockets,  when 
there  is  nothing  else  there.  Years  ago,  when 
my  whole  capital  would  occasionally  come  down 
to  "what  in  town  the  people  call  a  bob,"  I 
would  recklessly  spend  a  penny  of  it,  merely 
for  the  sake  of  having  the  change,  all  in  cop- 


30  IDLE   THOUGHTS  OF 

pens,  to  jingle.  You  don't  feel  nearly  so  hurd 
up  with  eleven  pence  in  your  pocket  as  you  do 
with  a  shilling.  Had  I  been  "La-di-da,"  thai 
impecunious  youth  about  whom  we  superior 
folk  are  so  sarcastic,  I  would  have  changed 
my  penny  for  two  ha-pennies. 

I  can  speak  with  authority  on  the  subject 
of  being  hard  up.  I  have  been  a  provincial 
actor.  If  further  evidence  be  required,  which 
I  do  not  think  likely,  I  can  add  that  I  have 
been  a  "gentleman  connected  with  the  press." 
I  have  lived  on  15  shilling  a  week,  I  have 
lived  a  week  on  10,  owing  the  other  5;  and 
I  have  lived  for  a  fortnight  on  a  great-coat. 

It  is  wonderful  what  an  insight  into  domestic 
economy  being  really  hard  up  gives  me.  If 
you  want  to  find  out  the  value  of  money,  live 
on  15  shillings  a  week  and  see  how  much  you 
can  put  by  for  clothes  and  recreation.  You  will 
find  out  that  it  is  worth  while  to  wait  for  the 
farthing  change,  that  it  is  worth  while  to  walk 
a  mile  to  save  a  penny,  that  a  glass  of  beer  is 
a  luxury  to  be  indulged  in  only  at  rare  in- 
tervals, and  that  a  collar  can  be  worn  for  four 
days. 

Try  it  just  before  you  get  married.  It  will 
be  excellent  practice.  Let  your  son  and  heir 
try  it  before  sending  him  to  college.  He  won't 
grumble  at  a  hundred  a  year  pocket-money  then. 
There  are  some  people  to  whom  it  would  do  a 
world  of  good.  There  is  that  delicate  blossom 
who  can't  drink  any  claret  under  ninety-four, 
and  who  would  as  soon  think  of  dining  off 
cat's  meat  as  off  plain  roast  mutton.  You 
do  come  across  these  poor  wretches  now  and 


AN  IDLE  FELLOW  31 

then,  though,  to  the  credit  of  humanity,  they 
are  principally  confined  to  that  fearful  and 
wonderful  society  known  only  to  lady  novelists.. 
I  never  heard  of  one  of  these  creatures  dis- 
cussing a  menu  c?v(S.  but  I  feel  a  mad  desire 
to  drag  him  off  to  the  bar  of  some  common 
east-end  public-house  and  cram  a  sixpenny 
dinner  down  his  throat — beef-s:eak  pudding, 
fourpence;  potatoes,  a  penny;  half  a  pint  of 
porter,  a  penny.  The  recollection  of  it  (and 
the  mingled  fragrance  of  beer,  tobacco,  and 
roast  pork  generally  leaves  a  vivid  impression) 
might  induce  him  to  turn  up  his  nose  a  little 
less  frequently  in  the  future  at  everything  that 
is  put  before  him.  Then  there  is  that  generous 
party,  the  cadger's  delight,  who  is  so  free  with 
his  small  change,  but  who  never  thinks  of  pay- 
ing his  debts.  It  might  teach  even  him  a  little 
common  sense.  "I  always  give  the  waiter  a 
shilling.  One  can't  give  the  fellow  less,  you 
know,"  explained  a  young  government  clerk 
with  whom  I  was  lunching  the  other  day  in 
Regent  Street.  I  agreed  with  him  as  to  the 
utter  impossibility  of  making  it  elevenpence 
ha'penny,  but  at  the  same  time  I  resolved  to 
one  day  decoy  him  to  an  eating-house  I  re- 
membered near  Covent  Garden,  where  the 
waiter,  for  the  better  discharge  of  his  duties, 
coes  about  in  his  shirt-sleeves-— and  very  dirty 
sleeves  they  are,  too,  when  it  gets  near  the 
end  of  the  month.  I  know  that  waiter.  If  my 
friend  gives  him  anything  beyond  a  penny,  the 
man  will  insist  on  shaking  hands  with  him 
then  and  there  as  a  mark  of  his  esteem;  of  that 
I  feel  sure. 


32  IDLE  THOUGHTS  OF 

There  have  been  a  good  many  funny  things 
said  and  written  about  hardupishness,  but  the 
reality  is  not  funny,  for  all  that.  It  is  not 
funny  to  have  to  haggle  over  pennies.  It  isn't 
funny  to  be  thought  mean  and  stingy.  It  isn't 
funny  to  be  shabby  and  to  be  ashamed  of  your 
address.  No,  there  is  nothing  at  all  funny  in 
poverty — to  the  poor.  It  is  hell  upon  earth  to 
a  sensitive  man;  and  many  a  brave  gentleman 
who  would  have  faced  the  labors  of  Hercules 
has  had  his  heart  broken  by  its  petty  miseries. 

It  is  not  the  actual  discomforts  themselves 
that  are  hard  to  bear.  Who  would  mind  rough- 
ing it  a  bit  if  that  were  all  it  meant?  What 
cared  Robinson  Crusoe  for  a  patch  on  his 
trousers?  Did  he  wear  trousers?  I  forget;  or 
did  he  go  about  as  he  does  in  the  pantomimes? 
What  did  it  matter  to  him  if  his  toes  did  stick 
out  of  his  boots?  and  what  if  his  umbrella  was 
a  cotton  one,  so  long  as  it  kept  the  rain  off? 
His  shabbiness  did  not  trouble  him;  there  was 
none  of  his  friends  round  about  to  sneer  him. 

Being  poor  is  a  mere  trifle.  It  is  being 
known  to  be  poor  that  is  the  sting.  It  is  not 
cold  that  makes  a  man  without  a  great-coat 
hurry  along  so  quickly.  It  is  not  all  shame  at 
telling  lies — which  he  knows  will  not  be  be- 
lieved— that  makes  him  turn  so  red  when  he 
informs  you  that  he  considers  great-coats  un- 
healthy and  never  carries  an  unbrella  on  prin- 
ciple. It  is  easy  enough  to  say  that  poverty 
is  no  crime.  No;  if  it  were  men  wouldn't  be 
ashamed  of  it.  It's  a  blunder,  though,  and  is 
punished  as  such.  A  poor  man  is  despised  the 
whole  world  over;  despised  as  much  by  a  Chris- 


AN   IDLE   FELLOW  33 

tian  as  by  a  lord,  as  much  by  a  demagogue  as 
by  a  footman,  and  not  aii  tJie  copy-booK  maxims 
ever  set  for  ink  stained  youth  will  make  him 
respected.  Appearances  are  everything,  so  far 
as  human  opinion  goes,  and  the  man  who  will 
walk  down  Piccadilly  arm  in  arm  with  the  most 
notorious  scamp  in  London,  provided  he  is  a 
well-dressed  one,  will  slink  up  a  back  street  to 
say  a  couple  of  words  to  a  seedy-looking  gentle- 
man. And  the  seedy-looking  gentleman  knows 
this — no  one  better — and  will  go  a  mile  round 
to  avoid  meeting  an  acquaintance.  Those  that 
knew  him  in  his  prosperity  need  never  trouble 
themselves  to  look  the  other  way.  He  is  a 
thousand  times  more  anxious  that  they  should 
not  see  him  than  they  can  be;  and  as  to  their 
assistance,  there  is  nothing  he  dreads  more 
than  the  offer  of  it.  All  he  wants  is  to  be  for- 
gotten; and  in  this  respect  he  is  generally 
fortunate  enough  to  get  what  he  wants. 

One  becomes  used  to  being  hard  up,  as  one 
becomes  used  to  everything  else,  by  the  help 
of  that  w^onderful  old  homeopathic  doctor. 
Time.  You  can  tell  at  a  glance  the  difference 
between  the  old  hand  and  the  novice;  between 
the  case-hardened  man  who  has  been  used  to 
shift  and  struggle  for  years  and  the  poor  devil 
of  a  beginner  striving  to  hide  his  misery,  and 
in  a  constant  agony  of  fear  lest  he  should  be 
found  out.  Nothing  shows  this  difference  more 
clearly  that  the  w^ay  in  which  each  will  pawn 
his  watch.  As  the  poet  says  somewhere: 
"True  ease  in  pawning  comes  from  art,  not 
chance."  The  one  goes  into'  his  "uncle's"  with 
as  much  composure  as  he  would  into  his  tailor's 


34  IDLE  THOUGHTS  OF 

— very  likel-y  with  more.  The  assistant  is  even 
civil  and  attends  to  him  at  once,  to  the  great 
indignation  of  the  lady  in  the  next  box,  who, 
however,  sarcastically  observes  that  she  don't 
mind  being  kept  waiting  "if  it  is  a  regular 
customer."  Why,  from  the  pleasant  and  busi- 
ness-like manner  in  which  the  transaction  is 
carried  out,  it  might  be  a  large  purchase  in  the 
three  per  cents.  Yet  what  a  piece  of  work 
a  man  makes  of  his  first  "pop."  A  boy  popping 
his  first  question  is  confidence  itself  compared 
with  him.  He  hangs  about  outside  the  shop 
until  he*  has  succeeded  in  attracting  the  atten- 
tion of  all  the  loafers  in  the  neighborhood  and 
has  aroused  strong  suspicions  in  the  mind  of 
the  policeman  on  the  beat.  At  last,  after  a 
careful  examination  of  the  contents  of  the 
windows,  made  for  the  purpose  of  impressing 
the  by-standers  with  the  notion  that  he  is  go- 
ing into  purchase  a  diamond  bracelet  or  some 
such  trifle,  he  enters,  trying  to  do  so  with  a 
careless  swagger,  and  giving  himself  really  the 
air  of  a  member  of  the  swell  mob.  When  inside 
he  speaks  in  so  low  a  voice  as  to  be  perfectly 
inaudible,  and  has  to  say  it  all  over  again. 
When,  in  the  course  of  his  rambling  conver- 
sation about  a  "friend"  of  his,  the  word  "lend" 
is  reached,  he  is  promptly  told  to  go  up  the 
court  on  the  right  and  take  the  first  door 
round  the  corner.  He  comes  out  of  the  shop 
with  a  face  that  you  could  easily  light  a  cig- 
arette at,  and  firmly  under  the  impression  that 
the  whole  population  of  the  district  is  watch- 
ing him.  When  he  does  get  to  the  right  place 
he  has  forgotten  his  name  and  address  and  is 


AN  IDLE   FELLOW  35 

in  a  general  condition  of  hopeless  imbecility. 
Asked  in  a  severe  tone  how  ha  came  by  "this," 
he  stammers  and  contrad-cts  himself,  and  it  is 
only  a  miracle  if  he  does  not  confess  to  having 
stolen  it  that  very  day.  He  is  thereupon  in- 
formed  that  they  don't  want  anything  to  do 
with  his  sort,  and  that  he  had  better  get  out 
of  this  as  quickly  as  possible,  which  he  does, 
recollecting  nothing  more  until  he  finds  him- 
self three  miles  off,  without  the  slightest  knowl- 
edge how  he  got  there. 

By  the  way,  how  awkward  it  is,  though,  hav- 
ing to  depend  on  public-houses  and  churches 
for  the  time.  The  former  are  generally  too 
fast  and  the  latter  too  slow.  Besides  which, 
your  efforts  to  get  a  glimpse  of  the  public- 
house  clock  from  the  outside  are  attended  with 
great  difficulties.  If  you  gently  push  the  swing- 
door  ajar  and  peer  in  you  draw  upon  your- 
self the  contemptuous  looks  of  the  barmaid, 
who  at  once  puts  you  down  in  the  same  cate- 
gory with  area  sneaks  and  cadgers.  You  also 
create  a  certain  amount  of  agitation  among 
thi  married  por  ion  of  the  customers.  You 
don't  see  the  clock  because  it  is  behind  the 
door;  and  in  trying  to  withdraw  quietly  you 
jam  your  head.  The  only  other  method  is  to 
jum.p  up  and  down  outside  the  window.  After 
this  latter  proceeding,  however,  if  you  do  not 
bring  out  a  banjo  and  commence  to  sing,  the 
youthful  inhabitants  of  the  neighborhood,  who 
have  gathered  round  in  expectation,  become 
disappointed. 

I  should  like  to  know,  too,  by  what  mys- 
terious law  of  nature  it  is  that  before  you  have 


36  IDLE   THOUGHTS  OF 

left  your  watch  "to  be  repaired"  half  an  hour, 
some  one  Is  sure  to  stop  you  in  the  street  and 
conspicuously  ask  you  the  time.  Nobody  even 
feels  the  slightest  curiosity  on  the  subject  when 
you've  got  it  on. 

Dear  old  ladies  and  gentlemen  who  know 
nothing  about  being  hard  up — and  may  they 
never,  bless  their  gray  old  heads — look  upon 
the  pawn-shop  as  the  last  stage  of  degradation; 
but  those  who  know  it  better  (and  my  readers 
have,  no  doubt,  noticed  this  themselves)  are 
often  surprised,  like  the  little  boy  who  dreamed 
he  went  to  heaven,  at  meeting  so  many  people 
there  that  they  never  expected  to  see.  For  my 
part,  I  think  it  a  much  more  independent  course 
than  borrowing  from  friends,  and  I  always 
try  to  impress  this  upon  those  of  my  acquaint- 
ance who  incline  toward  "wanting  a  couple  of 
pounds  till  the  day  after  to-morrow."  But  they 
won't  all  see  it.  One  of  them  once  remarked 
that  he  objected  to  the  principle  of  the  thing. 
I  fancy  if  he  had  said  it  was  the  interest  that 
he  objected  to  he  would  have  been  nearer  the 
truth:  twenty-five  per  cent,  certainly  does 
come  heavy. 

There  are  degrees  in  being  hard  up.  We  are 
all  hard  up,  more  or  less — most  of  us  more. 
Some  are  hard  up  for  a  thousand  pounds; 
some  for  a  shilling.  Just  at  this  moment  I  am 
hard  up  myself  for  a  fiver.  I  only  want  it 
for  a  day  or  two.  I  should  be  certain  of  paying 
it  back  within  a  week  at'  the  outside,  and  if 
any  lady  or  gentleman  among  my  readers  would 
kindly  lend  it  me,  I  should  be  very  much  obliged 
indeed.    They  could  send  it  to  me  under  cover 


AN  IDLE  FELLOW  37 

to  Messrs.  Field  &  Tuer,  only,  in  such  case, 
please  Let  the  envelope  be  carefully  sealed.  I 
would  give  you  my  I.O.U.  as  security. 

ON  VANITY  AND  VANITIES. 

All  is  vanity  and  everybody's  vain.  Women 
are  terribly  vain.  So  are  men — more  so,  if  pos- 
sible. So  are  children,  particularly  children. 
One  of  them  at  this  very  moment  is  hammer- 
ing upon  my  legs.  She  wants  to  know  what  I 
think  of  her  new  shoes.  Candidly  I  don't  think 
much  of  them.  They  lack  symmetry  and  curve 
and  possess  an  indescribable  appearance  of 
lumpiness  (I  believe,  too,  they've  put  them  on 
the  wrong  feet).  But  I  don't  say  this.  It  is 
not  criticism,  but  flattery  that  she  wants;  and 
I  gush  over  them  with  what  I  feel  to  myself 
to  be  degrading  effusiveness.  Nothing  else 
would  satisfy  this  self-opinionated  cherub.  I 
tried  the  conscientious-friend  dodge  with  her 
on  one  occasion,  but  it  was  not  a  success.  She 
had  requested  my  judgment  upon  her  general 
conduct  and  behavior,  the  exact  case  submitted 
being,  "Wot  oo  tink  of  me?  Oo  peased  wi 
me?"  and  I  had  thought  it  a  good  opportunity 
to  make  a  few  salutary  remarks  upon  her  late 
moral  career,  and  said:  "No,  I  am  not  pleased 
with  you."  I  recalled  to  her  mind  the  events 
of  that  very  morning,  and  I  put  it  to  her  how 
she,  as  a  Christian  child,  could  expect  a  wise 
and  good  uncle  to  be  satisfied  with  the  carry- 
ings on  of  an  infant  who  that  very  day  had 
roused  the  whole  house  at  five  a.  m.;  had  upset 
a  watering  and  tumbled  downstairs  after  it  at 
seven;   had  endeavored  to  put  the  cat  in  the 


38  IDLE  THOUGHTS  OP 

bath  at  eight;  and  sat  on  her  own  father's  hat 
at  nine  thirty-five. 

What  did  she  do?  Was  she  grateful  to  me 
for  my  plain  speaking?  Did  she  ponder  upon 
my  words  and  determine  to  profit  by  them  and 
to  lead  from  that  hour  a  better  and  nobler  life! 

No!   she  howled. 

That  done,  she  became  abusive.     She  said: 

"Oo  naughty — oo  naughty,  bad  unkie — oo  bad 
man — me  tell  MAR." 

And  she  did,  too. 

Since  then,  when  my  views  have  been  called 
for  I  have  kept  my  real  sentiments  to  myself 
like,  preferring  to  express  unbounded  admira- 
tion of  this  young  person's  actions,  irrespective 
of  their  actual  merits.  And  she  nods  her  head 
approvingly  and  trots  off  to  advertise  my  opin- 
ion to  the  rest  of  the  household.  She  appears 
to  employ  it  as  a  sort  of  testimonial  for  mer- 
cenary purposes,  for  I  subsequently  hear  dis- 
tant sounds  of  "Unkie  says  me  dood  dirl — me 
dot  to  have  two  bikkies  [biscuits]." 

There  she  goes,  now,  gazing  rapturously  at 
her  own  toes  and  murmuring  "pittie" — two- 
foot-ten  of  conceit  and  vanity,  to  say  nothing 
of  other  wickednesses. 

They  are  all  alike.  I  remember  sitting  in  a 
garden  one  sunny  afternoon  in  the  suburbs  of 
London.  Suddenly  I  heard  a  shrill  treble  voice 
calling  from  a  top-story  window  to  some  un- 
seen being,  presumably  in  one  of  the  other 
gardens,  "Gamma,  me  dood  boy,  me  wery  dood 
boy,  gamma;  me  dot  on  Bob's  knickiebockies." 

Why,  even  animals  are  vain.  I  saw  a  great 
Newfoundland    dog    the    other    day    sitting    in 


AN  IDLE   FELLOW  SQ 

front  of  a  mirror  at  the  entrance  to  a  shop  in 
Regent's  Circus  and  examining  himself  with  an 
amount  of  smug  satisfaction  that  I  have  never 
seen  equaled  elsewhere  outside  a  vestry  meet- 
ing. 

I  was  .at  a  farm-house  once  when  some  high 
holiday  was  being  celebrated.  I  don't  remem- 
ber what  the  occasion  was,  but  it  was  some- 
thing festive,  a  May  Day  or  Quarter  Day,  or 
something  of  that  sort,  and  they  put  a  garland 
of  flowers  round  the  head  of  one  of  the  cows. 
Well,  that  absurd  quadruped  went  about  all 
day  as  perky  as  a  school-girl  in  a  new  frock; 
and  when  they  took  the  wreath  off  she  became 
quite  sulky,  and  they  had  to  put  it  on  again 
before  she  would  stand  still  to  be  milked.  This 
is  not  a  Percy  anecdote.  It  is  plain,  sober 
truth. 

As  for  cats,  they  nearly  equal  human  beings 
for  vanity.  I  have  knov/n  a  cat  get  up  and 
walk  out  of  the  room  on  a  rem.ark  derogatory 
to  her  species  being  made  by  a  visitor,  while 
a  neatly  turned  compliment  will  set  them  purr- 
ing for  an  hour. 

I  do  like  cats.  They  are  so  unconsciously 
amusing.  There  is  such  a  comic  dignity  about 
them,  such  a  "How  dare  you!"  "Go  away, 
don't  touch  me"  sort  of  air.  Now,  there  is 
nothing  haughty  about  a  dog.  They  are  "Hail, 
fellow,  w^ell  met"  with  every  Tom,  Dick  and 
Harry  that  they  comf.  across.  When  I  meet  a 
dog  of  my  acquaintance  I  slan  his  head,  call  him 
opprobrious  epithets,  and  roll  him  over  on  his 
back;  and  there  he  lies,  gaping  at  me,  and 
doesn't  mind  it  a  bit. 


40  IDLiii   THOUGHTS   OF 

Fancy  carrying  on  like  that  with  a  cat!  Why, 
she  would  never  speak  to  you  again  as  long  as 
you  lived.  No,  when  you  want  to  win  the  ap- 
probation of  a  cat  you  must  mind  what  you  are 
about  and  work  your  way  carefully.  If  you 
don't  know  the  cat,  you  had  best  begin  by  say- 
ing, "Po'or  pussy."  After  which  ad  J  "did  'urns" 
in  a  tone  of  soothing  sympathy.  You  don't 
know  what  you  mean  any  more  than  the  cat 
does,  but  the  sentiment  seems  to  imply  a  proper 
spirit  on  your  part,  and  generally  touches  her 
feelings  to  such  an  extent  that  if  you  are  of 
good  manners  and  passable  appearance  she  will 
stick  her  back  up  and  rub  her  nose  against  you. 
Matters  having  reached  this  stage,  you  may 
chuck  her  under  the  chin  and  tickle  the  side 
of  her  head,  and  the  intelligent  creature  will 
then  stick  her  claws  into  your  legs;  and  all  is 
friendship  and  affection,  as  so  sweetly  ex- 
pressed in  the  beautiful  lines — 

"I  love  little  pussy,  her  coat  is  so  warm, 
And   if  I  don't  tease  her   she'll   do  me  no   harm; 
So   I'll    stroke    her,    and   pat    her,    and    feed    her 

with   food, 
And  pussy   will  love  me  because  I  am  good." 

The  last  two  lines  of  the  stanza  give  us  a 
pretty  true  insight  into  pussy's  notions  of 
human  goodness.  It  is  evident  that  in  her 
opinion  goodness  consists  of  stroking  her,  and 
patting  her,  and  feeding  her  with  food.  I  fear 
this  narrow-minded  view  of  virtue,  though,  is 
not  confined  to  pussies.  We  are  all  inclined 
to  adopt  a  similar  standard  of  merit  in  our 
estimate  of  other  people.  A  good  man  is  a 
man  who  is  good  to  us,  and  a  bad  man  is  a 
man  who  doesn't  do  what  we  want  him  to.   The 


AN  IDLE  FELLOW  41 

truth  is,  we  each  of  us  have  an  inborn  convic- 
tion that  the  whole  world,  with  everybody  in 
it,  was  created  as  a  sort  of  necessary  append- 
age to  ourselves.  Our  fellow  men  and  women 
were  made  to  admire  us  and  to  minister  to  our 
various  requirements.  You  and  I,  dear  reader, 
are  each  the  center  of  the  universe  in  our  re- 
spective opinions.  You,  as  I  understand  it, 
were  brought  into  being  by  a  considerate  Provi- 
dence in  order  that  you  might  read  and  pay  me 
for  what  I  write;  while  I,  in  your  opinion,  am 
an  article  sent  into  the  world  to  write  some- 
thing for  you  to  read.  The  stars — as  we  term 
the  myriad  other  worlds  that  are  rushing  down 
beside  us  through  the  eternal  silence — were 
put  into  the  heavens  to  make  the  sky  look  in- 
teresting for  us  at  night;  and  the  moon  with 
its  dark  mysteries  and  ever-hidden  face  is  an 
arrangement  for  us  to  flirt  under. 

I  fear  we  are  most  of  us  like  Mrs.  Poyser's 
bantam  cock,  who  fancied  the  sun  got  up  every 
morning  to  hear  him  crow.  "  'Tis  vanity  that 
makes  the  world  go  round."  I  don't  believe 
any  man  -ever  existed  without  vanity,  and  if 
he  did  he  would  be  an  extremely  uncomfortable 
person  to  have  anything  to  do  with.  He  would, 
of  course,  be  a  very  good  man,  and  we  should 
respect  him  very  much.  He  would  be  a  very 
admirable  man — a  man  to  be  put  under  a  glass 
case  and  shown  round  as  a  specimen — a  man 
to  be  stuck  upon  a  pedestal  and  copied,  like  a 
school  exercise — a  man  to  be  reverenced,  but 
not  a  man  to  be  loved,  not  a  human  brother 
whose  hand  we  should  care  to  grip.  Angels 
may  be  very  excellent  sort  of  folk  in  their  way. 


*Z  IDLE  THOUGHTS  OF 

but  we,  poor  mortals,  in  our  present  state, 
would  probably  find  them  precious  slow  com- 
pany. Even  mere  good  people  are  rather  de- 
pressing. It  is  in  our  faults  and  failings,  not  in 
our  virtues,  that  we  touch  one  another  and  find 
sympathy.  We  differ  widely  enough  in  our 
nobler  qualities.  It  is  in  our  follies  that  we  are 
at  one.  Some  of  us  are  pious,  some  of  us  are 
generous.  Some  few  of  us  are  honest,  com- 
paratively speaking;  and  some,  fewer  still,  may 
possibly  be  truthful.  But  in  vanity  and  kindred 
weaknesses  we  can  all  join  hands.  Vanity  is 
one  of  those  touches  of  nature  that  make  the 
whole  world  kin.  From  the  Indian  hunter, 
proud  of  his  belt  of  scalps,  to  the  European 
general,  swelling  beneath  his  row  of  stars  and 
medals;  from  the  Chinese,  gleeful  at  the  length 
of  his  pigtail,  to  the  "professional  beauty,"  suf- 
fering tortures  in  order  that  her  waist  may 
resemble  a  peg-top;  from  the  draggle-tailed 
little  Polly  Stiggins,  strutting  through  Seven 
Dials  with  a  tattered  parasol  over  her  head,  to 
the  princess  sweeping  through  a  drawing-room 
with  a  train  of  four  yards  long;  from  'Arry, 
winning  by  vulgar  chaff  the  loud  laughter  of 
bis  pals,  to  the  statesman  whose  ears  are 
tickled  by  the  cheers  that  greet  his  high-sound- 
ing periods;  from  the  dark-skinned  African, 
bartering  his  rare  oils  and  ivory  for  a  few 
glass  beads  to  hang  about  his  neck,  to  the 
Christian  maiden  selling  her  white  body  for 
a  score  of  tiny  stones  and  an  empty  title  to 
tack  before  her  name — all  march,  and  fight, 
and  bleed,  and  die  beneath  its  tawdry  flag. 
Ay,  ay,  vanity  is  truly  the  motive-power  that 


AN  IDLE  FELLOW  43 

moves  humanity,  and  it  is  flattery  that  greases 
the  wheels.  If  you  want  to  win  affection  and 
respect  in  this  world,  you  must  flatter  people. 
Flatter  high  and  low,  and  rich  and  poor,  and 
silly  and  wise.  You  will  get  on  famously. 
Praise  this  man's  virtues  and  that  man's  vices. 
Compliment  everybody  upon  everything,  and 
especially  upon  what  they  haven't  got.  Ad- 
mire guys  for  their  beauty,  fools  for  their  wit, 
and  boors  for  their  breeding.  Your  discern- 
ment and  intelligence  will  be  extolled  to  the 
skies. 

Every  one  can  be  got  over  by  flattery.  The 
belted  earl — "belted  earl"  is  the  correct  phrase, 
I  believe.  I  don't  know  what  it  means,  unless 
it  be  an  earl  that  wears  a  belt  instead  of  braces. 
Some  men  do.  I  don't  like  it  myself.  You 
have  to  keep  the  thing  so  tight  for  it  to  be 
of  any  use,  and  that  is  uncomfortable.  Any- 
how, whatever  particular  kind  of  an  earl  a 
belted  earl  may  be,  he  is,  I  assert,  get-overable 
by  flattery;  just  as  every  other  human  being 
is,  from  a  duchess  to  a  cat's-meat  man,  from 
a  plowboy  to  a  poet — and  the  poet  far  easier 
than  the  plowboy,  for  butter  sinks  better  into 
wheaten  bread  than  into  oaten  cakes. 

As  for  love,  flattery  is  its  very  life-blood. 
Fill  a  person  with  love  for  themselves,  and 
what  runs  over  will  be  your  share,  says  a  cer- 
tain witty  and  truthful  Frenchman  whose  name 
I  can't  for  the  life  of  me  remember.  (Confound 
it!  I  never  can  remember  names  when  I  want 
to.)  Tell  a  girl  she  is  an  angel,  only  more 
angelic  than  an  angel;  that  she  is  a  goddess, 
only  more  graceful,  queenly,  and  heavenly  than 


44  IDLE  THOUGHTS  OF 

the  average  goddess;  that  she  is  more  fairy- 
like than  Titania,  more  beautiful  than  Venus, 
more  enchanting  than  Parthenope;  more  ador- 
able, lovely,  radiant,  in  short,  than  any  other 
woman  that  ever  did  live,  does  live,  or  could 
live,  and  you  will  make  a  very  favorable  im- 
pression upon  her  trusting  little  heart.  Sweet 
innocent!  she  will  believe  every  word  you  say. 
It  is  so  easy  to  deceive  a  woman — in  this  way. 

Dear  little  souls,  they  hate  flattery,  so  they 
tell  you;  and  when  you  say,  "Ah,  darling,  it 
isn't  flattery  in  your  case,  it's  plain,  sober 
truth;  you  really  are,  without  exaggeration,  the 
most  beautiful,  the  most  good,  the  most  charm- 
ing, the  most  divine,  the  most  perfect  human 
creature  that  ever  trod  this  earth,"  they  will 
smile  a  quiet,  approving  smile,  and,  leaning 
against  your  manly  shoulder,  murmur  that  you 
are  a  dear  good  fellow  after  all. 

By  Jove!  fancy  a  man  trying  to  make  love 
on  strictly  truthful  principles,  determining 
never  to  utter  a  word  of  mere  compliment  or 
hyperbole,  but  to  scrupulously  confine  himself 
to  exact  fact!  Fancy  his .  gazing  rapturously 
into  his  mistress'  eyes  and  whispering  softly 
to  her  that  she  wasn't,  on  the  whole,  bad-look- 
ing, as  girls  went!  Fancy  his  holding  up  her 
little  hand  and  assuring  her  that  it  was  of  a 
light  drab  color  shot  with  red;  and  telling  her 
as  he  pressed  her  to  his  heart  that  her  nose, 
for  a  turned-up  one,  seemed  rather  pretty;  and 
that  her  eyes  appeared  to  him,  as  far  as  he 
could  judge,  to  be  quite  up  to  the  average 
standard  of  such  things! 

A  nice  chance  he  would  stand  against  the 


AN  idi^e:  fellow  45 

man  wtio  would  tell  her  that  her  face  was  like 
a  fresh  blush  rof;  that  her  hair  was  a  wander- 
ing sunbeam  imprisoned  by  her  smiles,  and  her 
eyes  like  two  evening  stars. 

There  are  various  ways  of  flattering,  and,  of 
course,  you  must  adapt  your  style  to  your  sub- 
ject. Some  people  like  it  laid  on  with  a  trowel, 
and  this  requires  very  little  art.  With  sensible 
persons,  however,  it  needs  to  be  done  very 
delicately,  and  more  by  suggestion  than  actual 
words.  A  good  many  like  it  wrapped  up  in 
the  form  of  an  insult,  as — "Oh,  you  are  a  per- 
fect fool,  you  are.  You  would  give  your  last 
sixpence  to  the  first  hungry-looking  beggar  you 
met;"  while  others  will  swallow  it  only  when 
administered  through  the  medium  of  a  third 
person,  so  that  if  C  wishes  to  get  at  an  A  of 
this  sort,  he  must  confide  to  A's  particular 
friend  B  that  he  thinks  A  a  splendid  fellow, 
and  beg  him,  B,  not  to  mention  it,  especially 
to  A.  Be  careful  that  B  is  a  reliable  man, 
though,  otherwise  he  won't. 

Those  fine,  sturdy  John  Bulls  who  "hate  flat- 
tery, sir,"  "Never  let  anybody  get  over  me  by 
flattery,"  etc.,  etc.,  are  very  simply  managed. 
Flatter  them  upon  their  absence  of  vanity,  and 
you  can  do  what  you  like  with  them. 

After  all,  vanity  is  as  much  a  virtue  as  a 
vice.  It  is  easy  to  recite  copy-book  maxims 
against  its  sinfulness,  but  it  is  a  passion  that 
can  move  us  to  good  as  well  as  to  evil.  Am- 
bition is  only  vanity  ennobled.  We  want  to 
win  praise  and  admiration — or  fam.e  as  we 
prefer  to  name  it — and  so  we  write  great  books, 
and  paint  grand  pictures,  and  sing  sweet  songs; 


46  IDLE   THOUGHTS  OF 

and  toil  with  willing  hands  in  study,  loom,  and 
laboracory. 

We  wish  to  become  rich  men,  not  in  order  to 
enjoy  ease  and  comfort — all  that  any  one  man 
can  taste  of  those  may  be  purchased  anywhere 
for  £200  per  annum — but  that  our  houses  may 
be  bigger  and  more  gaudily  furnished  than  our 
neighbors';  that  our  horses  and  servants  may 
be  more  numerous;  that  we  may  dress  our 
wives  and  daughters  in  absurd  but  expensive 
clothes;  and  that  we  may  give  costly  dinners 
of  which  we  ourselves  individually  do  not  eat 
a  shilling's  worth.  And  to  do  this  we  aid  the 
world's  work  with  clear  and  busy  brain,  spread- 
ing commerce  among  its  peoples,  carrying 
civilization   to   its  remotest   corners. 

Do  not  let  us  abuse  vanity,  therefore. 
Rather  let  us  use  it.  Honor  itself  is  but  the 
highest  form  of  vanity.  The  instinct  is  not 
confined  solely  to  Beau  Brummels  and  Dolly 
Vardens.  There  is  the  vanity  of  the  peacock 
and  the  vanity  of  the  eagle.  Snobs  are  vain. 
But  so,  too,  are  heroes.  Come,  oh!  my  young 
brother  bucks,  let  us  be  vain  together.  Let 
us  join  hands  and  help  each  other  to  increase 
our  vanity.  Let  us  be  vain,  not  of  our  trous- 
ers and  hair,  but  of  brave  hearts  and  working 
hands,  of  truth,  of  purity,  of  nobility.  Let  us 
be  too  vain  to  stoop  to  aught  that  is  mean  or 
base,  too  vain  for  petty  selfishness  and  little- 
minded  envy,  too  vain  to  say  an  unkind  word 
or  do  an  unkind  act.  Let  us  be  vain  of  being 
single-hearted,  upright  gentlemen  in  the  midst 
of  a  world  of  knaves.  Let  us  pride  ourselves 
upon  thinking  high  thoughts,  achieving  great 
deeds,  living  good  lives. 


AN  IDCE   FELLOW  47 

ON  GETTING  ON  IN  THE  WORLD. 

Not  exactly  the  sort  of  thing  for  an  idle 
fellow  to  think  about,  is  it?  But  outsiders, 
you  know,  often  see  most  of  the  game;  and 
sitting  in  my  arbor  by  the  wayside,  smoking 
my  hookah  of  contentment  and  eating  the 
sweet  lotus-leaves  of  indolence,  I  can  look  out 
musingly  upon  the  whirling  throng  that  rolls 
and  tumbles  past  me  on  the  great  highroad 
of  life. 

Never-ending  is  the  wild  procession.  Day 
and  night  you  can  hear  the  quick  tramp  of 
the  myriad  feet — some  running,  some  walk- 
ing, some  halting  and  lame;  but  all  hastening, 
all  eager  in  the  feverish  race,  all  straining  life 
and  limb  and  heart  and  soul  to  reach  the  ever- 
receding  horizon  of  success. 

Mark  them  as  they  surge  along — men  and 
women,  old  and  young,  gentle  and  simple,  fair 
and  foul,  rich  and  poor,  merry  and  sad — all  hur- 
rying, bustling,  scrambling.  The  strong  push- 
ing aside  the  weak,  the  cunning  creeping  past 
the  foolish;  those  behind  elbowing  those  be- 
fore; those  in  front  kicking,  as  they  run,  at 
those  behind.  Look  close  and  see  the  flitting 
Show.  Here  is  an  old  man  panting  for  breath, 
and  there  a  timid  maiden  driven  by  a  hard  and 
sharp-faced  matron:  here  is  a  studious  youth, 
reading  "How  to  Get  On  in  the  World"  and  let- 
ting everybody  pass  him  as  he  stumbles  alona: 
with  his  eyes  on  his  book:  here  is  a  bored- 
looking  man,  with  a  fashionably  dressed  woman 
Jogsring  his  elbow;  here  a  boy  gazing  wistfully 
l)ack  at  the  sunny  village  that  he  never  again 
will   see;    here,   with   a  firm  and   easy   step, 


48  IDLE   THOUGHTS  OP 

strides  a  broad-shouldered  man;  and  here,  with 
stealthy  tread,  a  thin-faced,  stooping  fellow 
dodges  and  shuffles  upon  his  way;  here,  with 
gaze  fixed  always  on  the  ground,  an  artful 
rogue  carefully  works  his  way  from  side  to  side 
of  the  road  and  thinks  he  is  going  forward; 
and  here  a  youth  with  a  noble  face  stands,  hesi- 
tating as  he  looks  from  the  distant  goal  to  the 
mud  beneath  his  feet. 

And  now  into  sight  comes  a  fair  girl,  with 
her  dainty  face  growing  more  wrinkled  at  every 
step,  and  now  a  care-worn  man,  and  now  a 
hopeful  lad. 

A  mosley  throng — a  motley  throng!  Prince 
and  beggar,  sinner  and  saint,  butcher  and  baker 
and  candlestick  maker,  tinkers  and  tailors,  and 
plowboys  and  sailors — all  jostling  along  to- 
gether. Here  the  counsel  in  his  wig  and  gown, 
and  here  the  old  Jew  clothes-man  under  his 
dingy  tiara;  here  the  soldier  in  his  scarlet,  and 
here  the  undertaker's  mute  in  streaming  hat- 
band and  worn  cotton  gloves;  here  the  musty 
scholar  fumbling  his  faded  leaves,  and  here  the 
scented  actor  dangling  his  showy  seals.  Here 
the  glib  politician  crying  his  legislative  pana- 
ceas, and  here  the  peripatetic  Cheap-Jack  hold- 
ing aloft  his  quack  cures  for  human  ills.  Here 
the  sleek  capitalist  and  there  the  sinewy  la- 
borer; here  the  man  of  science  and  here  the 
shoe-black;  here  the  poet  and  here  the  water- 
rate  collector;  here  the  cabinet  minister  and 
there  the  ballet  dancer.  Here  a  red-nosed  pub- 
lican shouting  the  praises  of  his  vats  and  there 
a  temperance  lecturer  at  £50  a  night;  here  a 
judge  and  there  a  swindler;  here  a  priest  and 


AN  IDLE   FELLOW  49 

there  a  gambler.  Here  a  jeweled  duchess, 
smiling  and  gracious;  here  a  thin  lodging  house 
keeper,  irritable  with  cooking;  and  here  a 
wabbling,  strutting  thing,  tawdry  in  paint  and 
finery. 

Cheek  by  cheek  they  struggle  onward. 
Screaming,  cursing,  and  praying,  laughing,  sing- 
ing, and  moaning,  they  rush  past  side  by  side. 
Their  speed  never  slackens,  the  race  never 
ends.  There  is  no  wayside  rest  for  them,  no 
halt  by  cooling  fountains,  no  pause  beneath 
green  shades.  On,  on,  on — on  through  the  heat 
and  the  crowd  and  the  dust — on,  or  they  will 
be  trampled  down  and  lost — on,  with  throbbing 
brain  and  tottering  limbs — on,  till  the  heart 
grows  sick,  and  the  eyes  grow  blurred,  and  a 
gurgling  sound  tells  those  behind  they  may 
close  up  another  space. 

And  yet,  in  spite  of  the  killing  pace  and  the 
Btony  track,  who  but  the  sluggard  or  the  dolt 
can  hold  aloof  from  the  course?  Who — like  the 
belated  traveler  that  stands  watching  fairy 
revels  till  he  snatches  and  drains  the  goblin 
cup  and  springs  into  the  whirling  circle — can 
view  the  mad  tumult  and  not  be  drawn  into 
its  midst?  Not  I  for  one.  I  confess  to  the  way- 
side arbor,  the  pipe  of  contentment,  and  the 
lotus-leaves  being  altogether  unsuitable  meta- 
phors. They  sounde "  very  nice  and  philo- 
sophical, but  I'm  afraid  I  am  not  the  sort  of 
person  to  sit  in  arbors  smoking  pipes  when 
there  is  any  fun  going  on  outside.  I  think  1 
more  resemble  the  Irishman  who,  seeing  a 
crowd  collecting,  seat  his  little  girl  out  to  ask 


50  IDLE  THOUGHTS  OF 

if  there  was  going  to  be  a  row — "  'Cos,  if  so, 
father  would  like  to  be  in  it." 

I  love  the  fierce  strife.  I  like  to  watch  It.  I 
like  to  hear  of  people  getting  on  in  it — battling 
their  way  bravely  and  fairly — that  is,  not  slip- 
ping through  by  luck  or  trickery.  It  stirs  one's 
old  Saxon  fighting  blood  like  the  tales  of 
"knights  who  fought  'gainst  fearful  odds"  that 
thrilled  us  in  our  school-boy  days. 

And  fighting  the  battle  of  life  is  fighting 
against  fearful  odds,  too.  There  are  giants  and 
dragons  in  this  nineteenth  century,  and  the 
golden  casket  that  they  guard  is  not  so  easy 
to  win  as  it  appears  in  the  story-books.  There, 
Algernon  takes  one  long,  last  look  at  the  an- 
cestral hall,  dashes  the  tear-drop  from  his  eye, 
and  goes  off — to  return  in  three  years'  time, 
rolling  in  riches.  The  authors  do  not  tell  us 
"how  it's  done,"  which  is  a  pity,  for  it  would 
surely  prove  exciting. 

But  then  not  one  novelist  in  a  thousand  ever 
does  tell  us  the  real  story  of  their  hero.  They 
linger  for  a  dozen  pages  over  a  tea-party,  but 
sum  up  a  life's  history  with  "he  had  become 
one  of  our  merchant  princes,"  or  "he  was  now 
a  great  artist,  with  the  world  at  his  feet."  Why, 
there  is  more  real  life  in  one  of  Gilbert's  pat- 
ter-songs than  in  half  the  biographical  novels 
ever  written.  He  relates  to  ns  all  the  various 
steps  by  which  his  office-boy  rose  to  be  the 
*'ruler  of  the  queen's  navee,"  and  explains  to 
us  how  the  briefless  barrister  managed  to  be- 
come a  great  and  good  judge,  "ready  to  try 
this  breach  of  promise  of  marriage."    It  is  in 


AN  IDLE   FELLOW  51 

the  petty  details,  not  in  the  great  results,  that 
the  interest  of  existence  lies. 

What  we  really  want  is  a  novel  showing  U3 
all  the  hidden  under-current  of  an  ambitious 
man's  career — his  struggles,  and  failures,  and 
hopes,  his  disappointments  and  victories.  It 
would  be  an  immense  success.  I  am  sure  the 
wooing  of  Fortune  would  prove  quite  as  inter- 
esting a  tale  as  the  wooing  of  any  flesh-and- 
blood  maiden,  though,  by  the  way,  it  would 
read  extremely  similar;  for  Fortune  is,  indeed, 
as  the  ancients  painted  her,  very  like  a  woman 
not  quite  so  unreasonable  and  inconsistent,  but 
nearly  so — and  the  pursuit  is  much  the  same 
in  one  case  as  in  the  other.  Ben  Johnson's 
couplet — 

"Court  a  mistress,  she  denies  you; 
Let  her  alone,  she  will  court  ycu" — 
puts  them  both  in  a  nutshell.  A  woman  never 
thoroughly  cares  for  her  lover  until  he  has 
ceased  to  care  for  her;  and  it  is  not  until  you 
have  snapped  your  fingers  iu  Fortune's  face 
and  turned  on  your  heel  that  she  begins  to 
smile  upon  you. 

But  by  that  time  you  do  not  much  care 
whether  she  smiles  or  frowns.  Why  could  she 
not  have  smiled  when  her  smiles  would  have 
filled  you  with  ecstasy?  Everything  comes  too 
late  in  this  world. 

Good  people  say  that  it  is  quite  right  and 
proper  that  it  should  be  so,  and  that  it  proves 
ambition  is  wicked. 

Bosh!  Good  people  are  altogether  wrong. 
(They  always  are,  in  my  opinion.  We  never 
agree  on  any  single  point.)     What  would  the 


52  IDLE   THOUGHTS   OF 

world  do  without  ambitious  people,  I  should 
like  to  know?  Why,  it  would  be  as  flabby  as  a 
Norfolk  dumpling.  Ambitious  people  are  the 
leaven  which  raises  it  into  wholesome  bread. 
Without  ambitious  people  the  world  would 
never  get  up.  They  are  busybodies  who  are 
about  early  in  the  morning,  hammering,  shout- 
ing, and  rattling  the  fire-irons,  and  rendering 
it  generally  impossible  for  the  rest  of  the  house 
to  remain  in  bed. 

Wrong  to  be  ambitious,  forsooth!  The  men 
wrong  who,  with  bent  back  and  sweating  brow, 
cut  the  smooth  road  over  which  humanity 
marches  forward  from  generation  to  genera- 
tion! Men  wrong  for  using  the  talents  that 
their  Master  has  intrusted  to  them — for  toiling 
while  others  play! 

Of  course  they  are  seeking  their  reward. 
Man  is  not  given  that  god-like  unselfishness 
that  thinks  only  of  others'  good.  But  in  work- 
ing for  themselves  they  are  working  for  us  all. 
We  are  so  bound  together  that  no  man  can 
labor  for  himself  alone.  Each  blow  he  strikes 
in  his  own  behalf  helps  to  mold  the  universe. 
The  stream  in  struggling  onward  turns  the  mill- 
wheel;  the  coral  insect,  fashioning  its  tiny  cell, 
joins  continents  to  one  another;  and  the  am- 
bitious man,  building  a  pedestal  for  himself, 
leaves  a  monument  to  posterity.  Alexander 
and  Caesar  fought  for  their  own  ends,  but  in 
doing  so  they  put  a  belt  of  civilization  half 
round  the  earth.  Stephenson,  to  win  a  for- 
tune, invented  the  steam-engine;  and  Shake- 
speare wrote  his  plays  in  order  to  keep  a  com- 


AN  IDLE  FELLOW  53 

fortable  home  for  Mrs.  Shakespeare  and  the 
little  Shakespeares. 

Contented,  unambitious  people  are  all  very 
well  in  their  way.  They  form  a  neat,  useful 
background  for  great  portraits  to  be  painted 
against,  and  they  make  a  respectable,  if  not 
particularly  intelligent,  audience  for  the  active 
spirits  of  the  age  to  play  before.  I  have  not 
a  word  to  say  against  contented  people  so  long 
as  they  keep  quiet.  But  do  not,  for  goodness' 
sake,  let  them  go  strutting  about,  as  they  are 
so  fond  of  doing,  crying  out  that  they  are  the 
true  models  for  the  whole  species.  Why,  they 
are  the  deadheads,  the  drones  in  the  great  hive, 
the  street  crowds  that  lounge  about,  gaping  at 
those  who  are  working. 

And  let  them  not  imagine,  either — as  they 
are  also  fond  of  doing — that  they  are  very  wise 
and  philosophical  and  that  it  is  a  very  artful 
thing  to  be  contented.  It  may  be  true  that  "a 
contented  mind  is  happy  anywhere,"  but  so  is 
a  Jerusalem  pony,  and  the  consequence  is  that 
both  are  put  anywhere  and  are  treated  any- 
how. "Oh,  you  need  not  bother  about  him,"  is 
what  is  said;  "he  is  very  contented  as  he  is, 
and  it  would  be  a  pity  to  disturb  him."  And 
so  your  contented  party  is  passed  over  and 
the  discontented  man  gets  his  place. 

If  you  are  foolish  enough  to  be  contented, 
don't  show  it,  but  grumble  with  the  rest;  and 
if  you  can  do  with  a  little,  ask  for  a  great  deal. 
Because  if  you  don't  you  won't  get  any.  In 
this  world  it  is  necessary  to  adopt  the  princi- 
ple pursued  by  the  plaintiff  in  an  action  for 
damages,  and  to  demand  ten  times  more  than 


54  IDLE  THOUGHTS  OF 

you  are  ready  to  accept.  If  you  can  feel  satis- 
fied with  a  hundred,  begin  by  insisting  on  a 
thousand;  if  you  start  by  suggesting  a  hundred 
you  will  only  get  ten. 

It  was  not  following  this  simple  plan  that 
poor  Jean  Jacques  Rousseau  came  to  such 
grief.  He  fixed  the  summit  of  his  earthly 
bliss  at  living  in  an  orchard  with  an  amiable 
woman  and  a  cow,  and  he  never  attained  even 
that.  He  did  get  as  far  as  the  orchard,  but 
the  woman  was  not  amiable,  and  she  brought 
her  mother  with  her,  and  there  was  no  cow. 
Now,  if  he  had  made  up  his  mind  for  a  large 
country  estate,  a  houseful  of  angels,  and  a  cat- 
tle-show, he  might  have  lived  to  possess  his 
kitchen  garden  and  one  head  of  live-stock,  and 
even  possibly  have  came  across  that  "rara- 
avis" — a  really  amiable  woman. 

What  a  terribly  dull  affair,  too,  life  must  be 
for  contented  people!  How  heavy  the  time 
must  hang  upon  their  hands,  and  what  on  earth 
do  they  occupy  their  thoughts  with,  supposing 
that  they  have  any?  Reading  the  paper  and 
smoking  seems  to  be  the  intellectual  food  of 
the  majority  of  them,  to  which  the  more  ener- 
getic add  playing  the  flute  and  talking  about 
the  affairs  of  the  next-door  neighbor. 

They  never  knew  the  excitement  of  expec- 
tation nor  the  stern  delight  of  accomplished  ef- 
fort, such  as  stir  the  pulse  of  the  man  who  has 
objects,  and  hopes,  and  plans.  To  the  ambi- 
tious man  life  is  a  brilliant  game — a  game  that 
calls  forth  all  his  tact  and  energy  and  nerve — 
a  game  to  be  won,  in  the  long  run,  by  the 
quick  eye  and  the  steady  hand,  and  yet  having 


AN  IDLE  FELLOW  55 

sufficient  chance  about  Its  working  out  to  give 
it  all  the  glorious  zest  of  uncertainty.  He 
exults  in  it  as  the  strong  swimmer  in  the  heav- 
ing billows,  as  the  athlete  in  the  wrestle,  the 
soldier  in  the  battle. 

And  if  he  be  defeated  he  wins  the  grim  joy 
of  fighting;  if  he  lose  the  race,  he,  at  least, 
has  had  a  run.  Better  to  work  and  fail  than  to 
sleep  one's  life  away. 

So,  walk  up,  walk  up,  walk  up.  Walk  up, 
ladies  and  gentlemen!  Walk  up,  boys  and  girls! 
Show  your  skill  and  try  your  strength;  brave 
your  luck  and  prove  your  pluck.  Walk  up! 
The  show  is  never  closed  and  the  game  is 
always  going.  The  only  genuine  sport  in  all 
the  fair,  gentlemen — highly  respectable  and 
strictly  moral — patronized  by  the  nobility,  cler- 
gy, and  gentry.  Established  in  the  year  one, 
gentlemen,  and  been  flourishing  ever  since — 
walk  up!  Walk  up,  ladies  and  gentlemen,  and 
take  a  hand.  There  are  prizes  for  all  and  all 
can  play.  There  is  gold  for  the  man  and  fame 
for  the  boy;  rank  for  the  maiden  and  pleasure 
for  the  fool.  So  walk  up,  ladies  and  gentlemen, 
walk  up! — all  prizes  and  no  blanks;  for  some 
few  win,  and  as  to  the  rest,  why — 
'The  rapture  of  pursuing 
Is  the  prize  the  vanquished  gain." 

ON  THE  WEATHER. 
Things   do   go   so   contrary-like   with    me.     I 
wanted  to  hit  upon  an  especially  novel,  out-of- 
the-way  subject  for  one   of  these  articles.     "I 
will   write    one    paper    about    something    alto- 


56  IDLE   THOUGHTS  OF 

gether  new,"  I  said  to  myself;  "something  that 
nobody  else  has  ever  written  or  talked  about 
before;  and  then  I  can  haye  it  all  my  own 
way."  And  I  went  about  for  days,  trying  to 
think  of  something  of  this  kind;  and  I  couldn't. 
And  Mrs.  Cutting,  our  charwoman,  came  yes- 
terday— I  don't  mind  mentioning  her  name,  be- 
cause I  know  she  will  not  see  this  book.  She 
would  not  look  at  such  a  frivolous  publication. 
She  never  reads*  anything  but  the  Bible  and 
Lloyd's  Weekly  News.  All  other  literature  she 
considers  unnecessary  and  sinful. 

She  said:  "Lor*,  sir,  you  do  look  worried.** 

I  said:  "Mrs.  Cutting,  I  am  trying  to  think 
of  a  subject  the  discussion  of  which  will  come 
upon  the  world  in  the  nature  of  a  startler — 
some  subject  upon  which  no  previous  human 
being  has  ever  said  a  word — some  subject  that 
will  attract  by  its  novelty,  invigorate  by  its 
surprising  freshness." 

She  laughed  and  said  I  was  a  funny  gentle- 
man. 

That's  my  luck  again.  When  I  make  serious 
observations  people  chuckle!  when  I  attempt  a 
joke  nobody  sees  it.  I  had  a  beautiful  one 
last  week.  I  thought  it  so  good,  and  I  worked 
it  up  and  brought  it  in  artfully  at  a  dinner- 
party. I  forget  how  exactly,  but  we  had  been 
talking  about  the  attitude  of  Shakespeare  to- 
ward the  Reformation,  and  I  said  something 
and  immediately  added,  "Ah,  that  reminds  me; 
such  a  funny  thing  happened  the  other  day  in 
Whitechapel."  "Oh,**  said  they,  "wh'at  was 
that?"     "Oh,  'twas  awfully  funny,**  I  replied, 


AN  IDLE   FELLOW  0< 

begirming  to  giggle  myself;  "it  will  make  you 
roar;"  and  I  told  it  them. 

There  was  dead  silence  when  I  finisljed — it 
was  one  of  those  long  jokes,  too — and  then,  at 
last,  somebody  said:  "And  that  was  the  joke?" 

I  assured  them  that  it  was,  and  they  were 
very  polite  and  took  my  word  for  it.  All  but 
one  old  gentleman  at  the  other  end  of  the 
table,  who  wanted  to  know  which  was  the 
joke — what  he  said  to  her  or  what  she  said 
to  him;   and  we  argued  it  out. 

Some  people  are  too  much  the  other  way.  I 
knew  a  fellow  once  whose  natural  tendency  to 
laugh  at  everything  was  so  strong  that  if  you 
wanted  to  talk  seriously  to  him,  you  had  to  ex- 
plain before-hand  that  what  you  were  going 
to  say  would  not  be  amusing.  Unless  you  got 
him  to  clearly  understand  this,  he  would  go 
off  into  fits  of  merriment  over  every  word  you 
uttered.  I  have  knov/n  him  on  being  asked 
the  time  stop  short  in  the  middle  of  the  road, 
slap  his  leg,  and  burst  into  a  roar  of  laughter. 
One  never  dared  say  anything  really  funny  to 
that  man.  A  good  joke  would  have  killed  him 
on  the  spot. 

In  the  present  instance  I  vehemently  repu- 
diated the  accusation  of  frivolity,  and  pressed 
Mrs.  Cutting  for  practical  ideas.  She  then  be- 
came thoughtful  and  hazarded  "samplers;" 
saying  that  she  never  heard  them  spoken  much 
of  now,  but  that  they  used  to  be  all  the  rage 
when  she  was  a  girl. 

I  declined  samplers  and  begged  her  to  think 
again.  She  pondered  a  long  while,  with  a  tea- 
tray  in  her  hands,   and  at  last  suggested  the 


58  IDLE   THOUGHTS  OF 

weather,  which  she  was  sure  had  been  most 
trying  of  late. 

And  ever  since  that  idiotic  suggestion  I  have 
been  unable  to  get  the  weather  out  of  my 
thoughts  or  anything  else  in. 

It  certainly  is  most  wretched  weather.  At  all 
events  it  is  so  now  at  the  time  I  am  writing, 
and  if  it  isn't  particularly  unpleasant  when  I 
come  to  be  read  it  soon  will  be. 

It  always  is  wretched  weather  according  to 
us.  The  weather  is  like  the  government — al- 
ways in  the  wrong.  In  summer-time  we  say  it 
is  stifling;  in  winter  that  it  is  killing;  in 
spring  and  autumn  we  find  fault  with  it  for 
being  neither  one  thing  nor  the  other  and  wish 
it  would  make  up  its  mind.  If  it  is  fine  we 
say  the  country  is  being  ruined  for  want  of 
rain;  if  it  does  rain  we  pray  for  fine  weather. 
If  December  passes  without  snow,  we  indig- 
nantly demand  to  know  what  has  become  of 
our  good  old-fashioned  winters,  and  talk  as  if 
we  had  been  cheated  out  of  something,  we  had 
bought  and  paid  for;  and  when  it  does  snow, 
our  language  is  a  disgrace  to  a  ChrisMan  na- 
tion.' We  shall  never  be  content  until  each 
man  makes  his  own  weather  and  keeps  it  to 
himself. 

If  that  cannot  be  arranged,  we  would  rather 
do  without  it  altogether. 

Yet  I  think  it  is  only  to  us  in  cities  that  all 
weather  is  so  unwelcome.  In  her  own  home, 
the  country.  Nature  is  sweet  in  all  her  moods. 
What  can  be  more  beautiful  than  the  snow, 
falling  big  with  mystery  in  silent  softness, 
decking  the  fields  and  trees  with  white  as  if 


AN  IDLE  FELLOW  59 

for  a  fairy  wedding!  And  how  delightful  Is  a 
walk  when  the  frozen  ground  rings  beneath 
our  swinging  tread — when  our  blood  tingles  in 
the  rare  keen  air,  and  the  sheep-dogs'  distant 
bark  and  children's  laughter  peals  faintly  clear 
like  Alpine  bells  across  the  open  hills!  And 
then  skating!  scudding  with  wings  of  steel 
across  the  swaying  ice,  making  whirring  music 
as  we  fly.  And  oh,  how  dainty  is  spring — Na- 
ture at  sweet  eighteen!  When  the  little  hopeful 
leaves  peep  out  so  fresh  and  green,  so  pure  and 
bright,  like  young  lives  pushing  shyly  out  into 
the  bustling  world;  when  the  fruit-tree  blos- 
soms, pink  and  white,  like  village  maidens  in 
their  Sunday  frocks,  hide  each  white-washed 
cottage  in  a  cloud  of  fragile  splendor;  and  the 
cuckoo's  note  upon  the  breeze  is  wafted  through 
the  woods!  And  summer,  with  its  deep  dark 
green  and  drowsy  hum — when  the  rain-drops 
whisper  solemn  secrets  to  the  listening  leaves 
and  the  twilight  lingers  in  the  lanes!  And 
autumn!  ah,  how  sadly  fair,  with  its  golden 
glow  and  the  dying  grandeur  of  its  tinted 
woods — its  blood-red  sunsets  and  its  ghostly 
evening  mists,  with  its  busy  murmur  of  reap- 
ers, and  its  laden  orchards,  and  the  calling  of 
the  gleaners,  and  the  festivals  of  praise! 

The  very  rain,  and  sleet,  and  hail  seem  only 
Nature's  useful  servants  when  found  doing 
their  simple  duties  in  the  country;  and  the 
East  Wind  himself  is  nothing  worse  than  a 
boisterous  friend  when  we  meet  him  between 
the  hedge-rows. 

But  in  the  city  where  the  painted  stucco  blis- 
ters under  the  smoky  sun,  and  the  sooty  rain 


60  IDLE  THOUGHTS   OF 

brings  slush  and  mud,  and  the  snow  lies  piled 
in  dirty  heaps,  and  the  chill  blasts  whistle 
down  dingy  streets  and  shriek  round  flaring 
gas  lit  corners,  no  face  of  Nature  charms. 
Weather  in  towns  is  like  a  skylark  in  a  count- 
ing-house— out  of  place  and  in  the  way.  Towns 
ought  to  be  covered  in,  warmed  by  hot-water 
pipes,  and  lighted  by  electricity.  The  weather 
is  a  country  lass^  and  does  not  appear  to  ad- 
vantage in  town.  We  liked  well  enough  to 
flirt  with  her  in  the  hay-field,  but  she  does  not 
seem  so  fascinating  when  we  meet  her  in  Pall 
Mall.  There  is  too  much  of  her  there.  The 
frank,  free  laugh  and  hearty  voice  that  sounded 
so  pleasant  in  the  dairy  jars  against  the  arti- 
ficialty  of  town-bred  life,  and  her  ways  become 
exceedingly  trying. 

Just  lately  she  has  been  favoring  us  with  al- 
most incessant  rain  for  about  three  weeks;  and 
I  am  a  demned  damp,  moist,  unpleasant  body, 
as  Mr.  Mantalini  puts  it. 

Our  next-door  neighbor  comes  out  in  the  back 
garden  every  now  and  then  and  says  it's  doing 
the  country  a  world  of  good — not  his  coming 
out  into  the  back  garden,  but  the  weather.  He 
doesn't  understand  anything  about  it,  but  ever 
since  he  started  a  cucumber-frame  last  summer 
he  has  regarded  himself  in  the  light  of  an 
agriculturist,  and  talks  in  this  absurd  way  with 
the  idea  of  impressing  the  rest  of  the  terrace 
with  the  notion  that  he  is  a  retired' farmer. 
I  can  only  hope  that  for  this  once  he  is  cor- 
rect, and  that  the  weather  really  is  doing  good 
to  something,  because  it  is  doing  me  a  con- 
siderable   amount '  of    damage.      It    is    spoiling 


AN  IDLE   FELLOW  61 

both  my  clothes  and  my  temper.  The  latter  I 
can  afford,  as  I  have  a  good  supply  of  it,  but 
it  wounds  me  to  the  quick  to  see  my  dear  old 
hats  and  trousers  sinking,  prematurely  worn 
and  aged,  beneath  the  cold  world's  blasts  and 
snows. 

There  is  my  new  spring  suit,  too.  A  beauti- 
ful suit  it  was,  and  now  it  is  hanging  up  so 
bespattered  with  mud  I  can't  bear  to  look  at 
it. 

That  was  Jim's  fault,  that  was.  I  should 
never  have  gone  out  in  it  that  night  if  it  had 
not  been  for  him.  I  was  just  trying  it  on  when 
he  came  in.  He  threw  up  his  arms  with  a  wild 
yell  the  moment  he  caught  sight  of  it,  and  ex- 
claimed that  he  had  "got  'em  again!" 

I  said:  "Does  it  fit  all  right  behind?" 

"Spiffin,  old  man,"  he  replied.  And  then  he 
wanted  to  know  if  I  was  coming  out. 

I  said  "no"  at  first,  but  he  overruled  me.  He 
said  that  a  man  with  a  suit  like  that  had  no 
right  to  stop  indoors.  "Every  citizen,"  said 
he,  "owes  a  duty  to  the  public.  Each  one 
should  contribute  to  the  general  happiness  as 
far  as  lies  in  his  power.  Come  out  and  give 
the  girls  a  treat." 

Jim  is  slangy.  I  don't  know  where  he  picks 
it  up.    It  certainly  is  not  from  me. 

I  said:  "Do  you  think  it  will  really  please 
'em?" 

He  said  it  would  be  like  a  day  in  the  coun- 
try to  them. 

That  decided  me.  It  was  a  lovely  evening 
and   I  went. 

When  I  got  home   I   undressed  and   rubbed 


62  IDLE  THOUGHTS  OF 

myself  down  wuh  whisky,  put  my  feet  in  hot 
water  and  a  mustard  plaster  on  my  chest,  had 
a  basin  of  gruel  and  a  glass  of  hot  brandy-and- 
water,  tallowed  my  nose,  and  went  to  bed. 

These  prompt  and  vigorous  measures,  aided 
by  a  naturally  strong  constitution,  v/ere  the 
means  of  preserving  my  life;  but  as  for  the 
suit;  Well,  there,  it  isn't  a  suit;  it's  a  splash 
board. 

And  I  did  fancy  that  suit,  too.  But  thafS 
just  the  way.  I  never  do  get  particularly  fond 
of  anything  in  this  world  but  what  something 
dreadful  happens  to  it.  I  had  a  tame  rat  when 
I  was  a  boy,  and  I  loved  that  animal  as  only  a 
boy  would  love  an  old  water-rat;  and  one  day 
it  fell  into  a  large  dish  of  gooseberry-fool  that 
was  standing  to  cool  in  the  kitchen,  and  nobody 
knew  what  had  become  of  the  poor  creature 
until  the  second  helping. 

I  do  hate  wet  weather  in  town.  At  least,  it  is 
not  so  much  the  wet  as  the  mud  that  I  object 
to.  Somehow  or  other  I  seem  to  possess  an 
irresistible,  alluring  power  over  mud.  I  have 
only  to  show  myself  in  the  street  on  a  muddy 
day  to  be  half-smothered  by  it.  It  all  comes 
of  being  so  attractive,  as  the  old  lady  said 
when  she  was  struck  by  lightning.  Other  peo- 
ple can  go  out  on  dirty  days  and  walk  about 
for  hours  without  getting  a  speck  upon  them- 
selves; while  if  I  go  across  the  road  I  come 
back  a  perfect  disgrace  to  be  seen  (as  in  my 
boyish  days  my  poor  dear  mother  used  often 
to  tell  me).  If  there  was  only  one  dab  of 
mud  to  be  found,  I  am  convinced  I  should  carr 
ry  it  off  from  all  competitors. 


AN  IDi^E   FELLOV/  63 

I  wish  I  could  return  the  affection,  but  I 
fear  that  I  never  shall  be  able  to.  I  have  a 
hororr  of  what  they  call  the  "London  particu- 
lar." I  feel  miserable  and  muggy  all  through 
a  dirty  day,  and  it  is  quite  a  relief  to  pull 
one's  clothes  off  and  get  into  bed,  out  of  the 
way  of  it  all.  Everything  goes  wrong  in  wet 
weather.  I  don't  know  how  it  is,  but  there 
always  seem  to  me  to  be  more  people,  and 
dogs,  and  perambulators,  and  cabs,  and  carts 
about  in  wet  weather  than  at  any  other  time, 
and  they  all  get  in  your  way  more,  and  every- 
body is  so  disagreeable — except  myself — and 
it  does  make  me  so  wild.  And  then,  too,  some- 
how I  always  find  myself  carrying  more  things 
in  wet  weather  than  in  dry;  and  when  you 
have  a  bag,  and  three  parcels,  and  a  newspaper, 
and  it  suddenly  comes  on  to  rain,  you  can't 
open   your   umbrella. 

Which  reminds  me  of  another  phase  of  the 
weather  that  I  can't  bear,  and  that  is  April 
weather  (so  called  because  it  always  comes  in 
May).  Poets  think  it  very  nice.  As  it  does 
not  know  its  own  mind  five  minutes  together, 
they  liken  it  to  a  woman;  and  it  is  supposed 
to  be  very  charming  on  that  account.  I  don't 
appreciate  it,  myself.  Such  lightning-change 
business  may  be  all  very  agreeable  in  a  girl. 
It  is  no  doubt  highly  delightful  to  have  to  do 
with  a  person  who  grins  one  moment  about 
nothing  at  all,  and  snivels  the  next  for  precise- 
ly the  same  cause,  and  who  then  giggles,  and 
then  sulks,  and  who  is  rude,  and  affectionate, 
and  bad-tempered,  and  jolly,  and  boisterous,  and 
silent,    and    passionate,    and    cold,    and    stand- 


64  IDLE   THOUGHTS   OF 

Offish,  and  flopping,  all  in  one  minute  (mind, 
I  don't  say  this.  It  is  those  poets.  And  they 
are  supposed  to  be  connoisseurs  of  this  sort 
of  thing) ;  but  in  the  weather  the  disadvan- 
tages of  the  system  are  more  apparent.  A 
woman's  tears  do  not  make  one  wet,  but  the 
rain  does;  and  her  coldness  does  not  lay  the 
foundations  of  asthma  and  rheumatism,  as  the 
east  wind  is  apt  to.  I  can  prepare  for  and 
put  up  with  a  regularly  bad  day,  but  these 
ha'porth-of-all-sorts  kind  of  days  do  not  suit 
me.  It  aggravates  me  to  sep  a,  hright  blue 
sky  above  me  when  I  am  walking  along  wet 
through,  and  there  is  something  so  exasper- 
ating about  the  way  the  sun  comes  out  smiling 
after  a  drenching  shower;  and  seems  to  say: 
"Lord  love  you,  you  don't  mean  to  say  you're 
wet?  Well,  I  am  surprised.  Why,  it  was  only 
my  fun." 

They  don't  give  you  time  to  open  or  shut 
your  umbrella  in  an  English  April,  especially 
if  it  is  an  "automaton"  one — the  umbrella,  I 
mean,  not  the  April. 

I  bought  an  "automaton"  once  in  April,  and 
I  did  have  a  time  with  it!  I  wanted  an  um- 
brella, and  I  went  into  a  shop  in  the  Strand 
and  told  them  so,  and  they  said: 

"Yes,  sir.  What  sort  of  an  umbrella  would 
you  like?" 

I  said  I  should  like  one  that  would  keep  the 
rain  off,  and  that  would  not  allow  itself  to  be 
left  behind  in  a  railway  carriage. 

"Try  an  'automaton'?"  said  the  shopman, 

"What's  an  'automaton'?"  said  I, 

"Oh,    it's   a    beautiful    arrangement,"   replied 


AN  IDLE  FELLOW  6  5 

the  man,  with  a  touch  of  enthusiasm.  "It  opens 
and  shuts  itself." 

I  bought  one  and  found  that  he  was  quite 
correct.  It  did  open  and  shut  itself.  I  had  no 
control  over  it  whatever.  When  it  began  to 
rain,  which  it  did  that  season  every  alternate 
five  minutes,  I  used  to  try  and  get  the  machine 
to  open,  but  it  would  not  budge;  and  then  I 
used  to  stand  and  struggle  with  the  wretched 
thing,  shake  it,  and  swear  at  it,  while  the  rain 
poured  down  in  torrents.  Then  the  moment 
the  rain  ceased  the  absurd  thing  would  go  up 
suddenly  with  a  jerk  and  would  not  come  down 
again;  and  I  had  to  walk  about  under  a  bright 
blue  sky,  with  an  umbrella  over  my  head, 
wishing  that  it  would  come  on  to  rain  again,  so 
that  it  might  not  seem  that  I  was  insane. 

When  it  did  shut  it  did  so  unexpectedly  and 
knocked  one's  hat  off. 

I  don't  know  why  it  should  be  so,  but  it  is  an 
undeniable  fact  that  there  is  nothing  makes  a 
man  look  so  supremely  ridiculous  as  losing  his 
hat.  The  feeling  of  helpless  misery  that  shoots 
down  one's  back  on  suddenly  becoming  aware 
that  one's  head  is  bare  is  among  the  most 
bitter  ills  that  flesh  is  heir  to.  And  then  there 
is  the  wild  chase  after  it,  accompanied  by  an 
excitable  small  dog,  who  thinks  it  is  a  game, 
and  in  the  course  of  which  you  are  certain  to 
upset  three  or  four  innocent  children — to  say 
nothing  of  their  mothers — butt  a  fat  old  gentle- 
man onto  the  top  of  a  perambulator,  and  carom 
off  a  ladies'  seminary  into  the  arms  of  a  wet 
sweep.  After  this,  the  idiotic  hilarity  of  the 
spectators  and  the  disreputable  appearance  of 


GQ  IDLE   THOUGHTS  OF 

the  hat  when  recovered  appear  but  of  minor 
importance. 

Altogether,  what  between  March  winds,  April 
showers,  and  the  entire  absence  of  May  flow- 
ers, spring  is  not  a  success  in  cities.  It  is  all 
very  well  in  the  country,  as  I  have  said,  but  in 
towns  whose  population  is  anything  over  ten 
thousand  it  most  certainly  ought  to  be  abol- 
ished. In  the  world's  grim  workshops  it  is  like 
the  children — out  of  place.  Neither  shows  to 
advantage  amid  the  dust  and  din.  It  seems  so 
sad  to  see  the  little  dirt-grimed  brats  trying  to 
play  in  the  noisy  courts  and  muddy  streets. 
Poor  little  uncared-for,  unwanted  human  atoms, 
they  are  not  children.  Children  are  bright- 
eyed,  chubby,  and  shy.  These  are  dingy, 
screeching  elves,  their  tiny  faces  seared  and 
withered,  their  baby  laughter  cracked  and 
hoarse. 

The  spring  of  life  and  the  spring  of  the  year 
were  alike  meant  to  be  cradled  in  the  green 
lap  of  nature.  To  us  in  the  town  spring 
brings  but  its  cold  winds  and  drizzling  rains. 
We  must  seek  it  among  the  leafless  woods 
and  the  brambly  lanes,  on  the  heathy  moors 
and  the  great  still  hills,  if  we  want  to  feel  its 
joyous  breath  and  hear  its  silent  voices.  There 
is  a  glorious  freshness  in  the  spring  there.  The 
scurrying  clouds,  the  open  bleakness,  the  rush- 
ing wind,  and  the  clear  bright  air  thrill  one 
with  vague  energies  and  hopes.  Life,  like  the 
landscape  around  us,  seems  bigger,  and  wider, 
and  freer — a  rainbow  road  leading  to  unknown 
ends.  Through  the  silvery  rents  that  bar  the 
sky  we  seem  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  the  great 


AN  IDLE   FELLOW  67 

hope  and  grandeur  that  lies  around  this  little 
throbbing  world,  and  a  breath  of  its  scent  is 
wafted  us  on  the  wings  of  the  wild  March 
wind. 

Strange  thoughts  we  do  not  understand  are 
stirring  in  our  hearts.  Voices  are  calling  us 
to  some  great  effort,  to  some  mighty  work.  But 
we  do  not  comprehend  their  meaning  yet,  and 
the  hidden  echoes  within  us  that  would  reply 
are  struggling,  inarticulate  and  dumb. 
.  We  stretch  our  hands  like  children  to  the 
light,  seeking  to  grasp  we  know  not  what.  Our 
thoughts,  like  the  boys'  thoughts  in  the  Danish 
song,  are  very  long,  long  thoughts,  and  very 
vague;  we  cannot  see  their  end. 

It  must  be  so.  All  thoughts  that  peer  out- 
side this  narrow  world  cannot  be  else  than  dim 
and  shapeless.  The  thoughts  that  we  can  clear- 
ly grasp  are  very  little  thoughts — that  two  and 
two  make  four — that  when  we  are  hungry  it 
is  pleasant  to  eat — that  honesty  is  the  best 
policy;  all  greater  thoughts  are  undefined  and 
vast  to  our  poor  childish  brains.  We  see  but 
dim.ly  through  the  mists  that  roll  around  our 
time-girt  isle  of  life,  and  only  hear  the  distant 
surging  of  the  great  sea  beyond, 

ON  CATS  AND  DOGS. 
What  I've  suffered  from  them  this  morning 
no  tongue  can  tell.  It  began  with  Gustavus 
Adolphus.  Gustavus  Adolphus  (they  call  him 
"Gusty"  downstairs  for  short)  is  a  very  good 
sort  of  dog  when  he  is  in  the  middle  of  a  large 
field  or  on  a  fairly  extensiv*^  common,  but  I 
won't  have  him  indoors.     He  means  well,  but 


68  IDLE  THOUGHTS  OF 

this  house  is  not  his  size.  He  stretches  him- 
self, and  over  go  two  chairs  and  a  what-not. 
He  wags  his  tail,  and  the  room  looks  as  if  a 
devastating  army  had  marched  through  it.  He 
breathes,  and  it  puts  tha  fire  out. 

At  dinner  time  he  creeps  in  under  the  table, 
lies  there  for  awhile,  and  then  gets  up  sud- 
denly; the  first  intimation  we  have  of  his 
movements  being  given  by  the  table,  which  ap- 
pears animated  by  a  desire  to  turn  somersaults. 
We  -all  clutch  at  it  frantically  and  endeavor  to 
maintain  it  in  a  horizontal  position;  whereupon 
his  struggles,  he  being  under  the  impression 
that  some  wicked  conspiracy  is  being  hatched 
against  him,  become  fearful,  and  the  final  pic- 
ture presented  is  generally  that  of  an  over- 
turned table  and  a  smashed-up  dinner  sand- 
wiched between  two  sprawling  layers  of  infuri- 
ated men  and  women. 

He  came  in  this  morning  in  his  usual  style, 
which  he  appears  to  have  founded  on  that  of  an 
American  cyclone,  and  the  first  thing  he  did 
was  to  sweep  my  coffee-cup  off  the  table  with 
his  tail,  sending  the  contents  full  into  the  mid- 
dle of  my  waistcoat. 

I  rose  from  my  chair  hurriedly,  and  remark- 
ing " ,"  approached  him  at  a  rapid  rate.    He 

preceded  me  in  the  direction  of  the  door.  At 
the  door  he  met  Eliza  coming  in  with  eggs. 
Eliza  observed  "Ugh!"  and  sat  down  on  the 
floor,  the  eggs  took  up  different  positions  about 
the  carpet,  where  they  spread  themselves  out, 
and  Gustavus  Adolphus  left  the  room.  I  called 
after  him,  strongly  advising  him  to  go  straight 
down  stairs  and  not  let  me  see  him  again  for 


AN  IDLE  FELLOW  69 

the  next  hour  or  so;  and  he,  seeming  to  agree 
with  me,  dodged  the  coal-scoop  and  went,  while 
I  retur-ned,  dried  myself,  and  finished  break- 
fast. I  made  sure  that  he  had  gone  into  the 
yard,  but  when  I  looked  into  the  passage  ten 
minutes  later  he  was  sitting  at  the  top  of  the 
stairs.  I  ordered  him  down  at  once,  but  he 
only  barked  and  jumped  about,  so  I  went  to  see 
what  was  the  matter. 

It  was  Tittums.  She  was  sitting  on  the  top 
stair  but  one  and  wouldn't  let  him  pass. 

Tittums  is  our  kitten.  She  is  about  the  size 
of  a  penny  roll.  Her  back  was  up  and  she  was 
swearing  like  a  medical  student. 

She  does  swear  fearfully.  I  do  a  little  that 
way  myself  sometimes,  but  I  am  a  mere  ama- 
teur compared  with  her.  To  tell  you  the  truth 
—mind,  this  is  strictly  between  ourselves, 
please;  I  shouldn't  like  your  wife  to  know  I 
said  it — the  women  folk  don't  understand  these 
things;  but  between  you  and  me,  you  know,  I 
think  it  does  a  man  good  to  swear.  Swearing 
is  the  safety-valve  through  which  the  bad  tem- 
per that  might  otherwise  do  serious  internal 
injury  to  his  mental  mechanism  escapes  in 
harmless  vaporing.  When  a  man  has  said: 
"Bless  you,  my  dear,  sweet  sir.  What  the  sun, 
moon,  and  stars  made  you  so  careless  (if  I  may 
be  permitted  the  expression)  as  to  allow  your 
light  and  delicate  foot  to  descend  upon  my 
corn  with  so  much  force?  Is  it  that  you  are 
physically  incapable  of  comprehending  the  di- 
rection in  which  you  are  proceeding?  you  nice, 
clever  young  man — you!"  or  words  to  that  ef- 
fect, he  feels  better.     Swearing  has  the  same 


70  IDLE  THOUGHTS  OP 

soothing  effect  upon  our  angry  passions  that 
smashing  the  furniture  or  slamming  the  doors 
is  so  well  known  to  exercise;  added  to  which  it 
is  much  cheaper.  Swearing  clears  a  man  out 
like  a  pen'orth  of  gunpowder  does  the  wash- 
house  chimney.  An  occasional  explosion  is 
good  for  both.  I  rather  distrust  a  man  who 
never  swears,  or  savagely  nicks  the  foot-stool, 
or  pokes  the  fire  with  unnecessary  violence. 
Without  some  outlet,  the  anger  caused  by  the 
ever-occurring  troubles  of  life  is  apt  to  rankle 
and  fester  within.  The  petty  annoyance,  in- 
stead of  being  thrown  from  us,  sits  down  beside 
us  and  becomes  a  sorrow,  and  the  little  of- 
fense is  brooded  over  till,  in  the  hot-bed  of  rumi- 
nation, it  grows  into  a  great  injury,  under 
whose  poisonous  shadow  springs  up  hatred  and 
revenge. 

Swearing  relieves  the  feelings — that  is  what 
swearing  does.  I  explained  this  to  my  aunt 
on  one  occasion,  but  it  didn't  answer  with  her. 
She  said  I  had  no  business  to  have  such  feel- 
ings. 

That  is  what  I  told  Tittums.  I  told  her  she 
ought  to  be  ashamed  of  herself,  brought  up  in 
a  Christian  family  as  she  was,  too.  I  don't  so 
much  mind  hearing  an  old  cat  swear,  but  I  can't 
bear  to  see  a  mere  kitten  give  way  to  it.  It 
seems  sad  in  one  so  young. 

I  put  Tittums  in  my  pocket  and  returned  to 
my  desk.  I  forgot  her  for  the  moment,  and 
when  I  looked  I  found  that  she  had  squirmed 
out  of  my  pocket  on  to  the  table  and  was  try- 
ing to  swallow  the  pen;  then  she  put  her  leg 
into  the  ink-pot  and  upset  it;   then  she  licked 


AN   IDLE   FELLOW  71 

her  leg;  then  she  swore  again — at  me  this  time. 
I  put  her  down  on  the  floor,  and  there  Tim 
began  rowing  with  her.  I  do  wish  Tim  would 
mind  his  own  business.  It  was  no  concern  of 
his  what  she  had  been  doing.  Besides,  he  is 
not  a  saint  himself.  He  is  only  a  two-year-old 
fox-terrier,  and  he  interferes  with  everything 
and  gives  himself  the  airs  of  a  gray-headed 
Scotch  collie. 

Tittums'  mother  has  come  in  and  Tim  has 
got  his  nose  scratched,  for  which  I  am  re- 
markably glad.  I  have  put  them  all  three  out 
in  the  passage,  where  they  are  fighting  at  the 
present  moment.  I'm  in  a  mess  with  the  ink 
and  in  a  thundering  bad  temper;  and  if  any- 
thing more  in  the  cat  or  dog  line  comes  fool- 
ing around  me  this  morning,  it  had  better  bring 
its  own  funeral  contractor  with  it. 

Yet,  in  general,  I  like  cats  and  dogs  very 
much  indeed.  What  jolly  chaps  they  are!  They 
are  much  superior  to  human  beings  as  com- 
panions. They  do  not  quarrel  or  argue  with 
you.  They  never  talk  about  themselves,  but 
listen  to  you  while  you  talk  about  yourself,  and 
keep  up  an  appearance  of  being  interested  in 
the  conversation.  They  never  make  stupid 
remarks.  They  never  observe  to  Miss  Brown 
across  a  dinner  table  that  they  always  under- 
stood she  was  very  sweet  on  Mr.  Jones  (who 
has  just  married  Miss  Robinson).  They  never 
mistake  your  wife's  cousin  for  her  husband  and 
fancy  that  you  are  the  father-in-law.  And  they 
never  ask  a  young  author  with  fourteen  trage- 
dies, sixteen  comedies,  seven  farces,  and  a  cou- 


72  IDLE  THOUGHTS  OF 

pie  of  burlesques  in  his  desk  why  he  doesn't 
write  a  play. 

They  never  say  unkind  things.  They  never 
tell  us  of  our  faults,  "mereiy  for  our  own 
good."  Tliey  do  not  at  inconvenient  moments 
mildly  remind  us  of  our  past  follies  and  mis- 
takes. They  do  not  say,  "Oh,  yes,  a  lot  of  use 
you  are  if  you  are  ever  really  wanted" — sarcas- 
tic like.  They  never  inform  us,  like  our  inamo- 
ratas sometimes  do,  that  we  are  not  nearly  so 
nice  as  we  used  to  be.  We  are  always  the 
same  to  them. 

They  are  always  glad  to  see  us.  They  are 
with  us  in  all  our  humors.  They  are  merry 
when  we  are  glad,  sober  when  we  feel  solemn, 
and  sad  when  we  are  sorrowful. 

"Halloo!  happy  and  want  a  lark?  Right  you 
are;  I'm  your  man.  Here  I  am,  frisking  round 
you,  leaping,  barking,  pirouetting,  ready  for 
any  amount  of  fun  and  mischief.  Look  at  my 
eyes  if  you  doubt  me.  What  shall  it  be?  A 
romp  in  the  drawing-room  and  never  mind  the 
furniture,  or  a  scamper  in  the  fresh,  cool  air, 
a  scud  across  the  fields  and  down  the  hill,  and 
won't  we  let  old  Gaffer  Goggles'  geese  know 
what  time  o'  day  it  is,  neither!  Whoop!  come 
along." 

Or  you'd  like  to  be  quiet  and  think.  Very 
well.  Pussy  can  sit  on  the  arm  of  the  chair  and 
purr,  and  Montmorency  will  curl  himself  up  on 
the  rug  and  blink  at  the  fire,  yet  keeping  one 
eye  on  you  the  while,  in  case  you  are  seized 
with  any  sudden  desire  in  the  direction  of  rats. 

And  when  we  bury  our  face  in  our  hands  and 
wish  we  had  never  been  born,  they  don't  sit  up 


AN  IDLE   FELLOW  7^ 

very  straight  and  observe  that  we  have  brought 
it  all  upon  ourselves.  They  don't  even  hope  it 
will  be  a  warning  to  us.  But  they  come  up 
softly  and  shove  their  heads  against  us.  If  it 
is  a  cat  she  stands  on  your  shoulder,  rumples 
your  hair,  and  says,  "Lor,'  I  am  sorry  for  you, 
old  man,"  as  plain  as  words  can  speak;  and  if 
it  is  a  dog  he  looks  up  at  you  with  his  big,  true 
eyes  and  says  with  them.  "Well  you've  always 
got  me,  you  know.  We'll  go  through  the  world 
together  and  always  stand  by  each  other,  won't 


we 


He  is  very  imprudent,  a  dog  is.  He  never 
makes  it  his  business  to  inquire  whether  you 
are  in  the  right  or  in  the  wrong,  never  bothers 
as  to  whether  you  are  going  up  or  down  upon 
life's  ladder,  never  asks  whether  you  are  rich 
or  poor,  silly  or  wise,  sinner  or  saint.  You  are 
his  pal.  That  is  enough  for  him,  and  come 
luck  or  misfortune,  good  repute  or  bad,  honor 
or  shame,  he  is  going  to  stick  to  you,  to  com- 
fort you,  guard  you,  and  give  his  life  for  you 
if  need  iDe — foolish,  brainless,  soulless  dog! 

Ah!  old  stanch  friend,  with  your  deep,  clear 
eyes  and  bright,  quick  glances,  that  take  in  all 
*one  has  to  say  before  one  has  time  to  speak  it, 
do  you  know  you  are  only  an  animal  and  have 
no  mind?  Do  you  know  that  that  dull;eyed,  gin> 
sodden  lout  leaning  against  the  post  out  there  is 
immeasurably  your  intellectual  superior?  Do 
you  know  that  every  little-minded,  selfish 
scoundrel  who  lives  by  cheating  and  tricking, 
who  never  did  a  gentle  fleed  or  said  a  kind 
word,  who  never  had  a  chought  that  wa?  not 
mean  and  low  of  a  desire  that  was  not  base. 


f4  IDLE  THOUGHTS  OF 

whose  every  action  is  a  fraud,  whose  every  ut- 
terance is  a  lie — do  you  know  that  these  crawl- 
ing skulks  (and  there  are  millions  of  them  in 
the  world),  do  you  know  they  are  all  as  much 
superior  to  you  as  the  sun  is  superior  to  rush- 
light, you  honorable,  brave-hearted,  unselfish 
brute?  They  are  men,  you  know,  and  men  are 
the  greatest,  and  noblest,  and  wisest,  and  best 
beings  in  the  whole  vast  eternal  universe.  Any 
man  will  tell  you  that. 

Yes,  poor  doggie,  you  are  very  stupid,  very 
stupid  indeed,  compared  with  us  clever  men, 
who  understand  all  about  politics  and  philoso- 
phy, and  who  know  everything,  in  short,  except 
v/hat  we  are  and  where  we  came  from  and 
whither  we  are  going,  and  what  everything 
outside  this  tiny  world  and  most  things  in  it 
are. 

Never  mind,  though,  pussy  and  doggie,  we 
like  you  both  all  the  better  for  your  being 
stupid.  We  all  like  stupid  things.  Men  can't 
bear  clever  women,  and  a  woman's  ideal  man 
is  some  one  she  can  call  a  "dear  old  stupid." 
It  is  so  pleasant  to  come  across  people  more 
stupid  than  ourselves.  We  love  them  at  once 
for  being  so.  The  world  must  be  rather  a 
rough  place  for  clever  people.  Ordinary  folk 
dislike  them,  and  as  for  themselves,  they  hate 
each  other  most  cordially. 

But  there,  the  clever  people  are  such  a  very 
insignificant  minority  that  it  really  doesn't 
much  matter  if  they  are  unhappy.  So  long  as 
the  foolish  people  can  be  made  comfortable 
the  world,  as  a  whole  will  get  on  tolerably  well. 

Cats  have  the  credit  for  being  more  worldly 


AN  IDLE  FELLOW  75 

wise  than  dogs — of  looking  more  after  their 
own  interests  and  being  less  blindly  devoted  to 
those  of  their  friends.  And  we  men  and  wo- 
men are  naturally  shocked  at  such  selfishness. 
Cats  certainly  do  love  a  family  that  has  a  car- 
pet in  the  kitchen  more  than  a  family  that  has 
not;  and  if  there  are  many  children  about,  they 
prefer  to  spend  their  leisure  time  next  door. 
But,  taken  altogether,  cats  are  libeled.  Make 
a  friend  of  one,  and  she  will  stick  to  you 
through  thick  and  thin.  All  the  cats  that  I 
have  had  have  been  most  firm  comrades.  I 
had  a  cat  once  that  used  to  follow  me  about 
everywhere,  until  it  even  got  quite  embarrassing, 
and  I  had  to  beg  her,  as  a  personal  favor,  not 
to  accompany  me  any  further  down  the  High 
Street.  She  used  to  sit  up  for  me  when  I  was 
late  home  and  meet  me  in  the  passage.  It 
made  me  feel  quite  like  a  married  man,  except 
that  she  never  asked  me  where  I  had  been 
and  then  didn't  believe  me  when  I  told  her. 

Another  cat  I  had  used  to  get  drunk  regularly 
every  day.  She  would  hang  about  for  hours 
outside  the  cellar  door  for  the  purpose  of  sneak- 
ing in  on  the  first  opportunity  and  lapping  up 
the  drippings  from  the  beer-cask.  I  do  not 
mention  this  habit  of  hers  in  praise  of  the 
species,  but  merely  to  show  how  almost  human 
some  of  them  are.  If  the  transmigration  of 
souls  is  a  fact,  this  animal  was  certainly  quali- 
fying most  rapidly  for  a  Christian,  for  her 
vanity  was  only  second  to  her  love  of  drink. 
Whenever  she  caught  a  particularly  big  rat, 
she  would  bring  it  up  into  the  room  where  we 
were  all   sitting,   lay  the  corpse   down  in  the 


76  IDLE  THOUGHTS  OF 

midst  of  us,  and  wait  to  be  praised.  Lord! 
how  the  girls  used  to  scream. 

Poor  rats!  They  seem  only  to  exist  so  that 
cats  and  dogs  may  gain  credit  for  killing  them 
and  chemists  make  a  fortune  by  inventing 
specialties  in  poison  for  their  destruction.  And 
yet  there  is  something  fascinating  about  them. 
They  are  so  cunning  and  strong,  so  terrible  in 
their  numbers,  so  cruel,  so  secret.  They  swarm 
in  deserted  houses,  where  the  broken  case- 
ments hang  rotting  to  the  crumbling  walls  and 
the  doors  swing  creaking  on  their  rusty  hinges. 
They  know  the  sinking  ship  and  leave  her,  no 
one  knows  how  or  whither.  They  whisper  to 
each  other  in  their  hiding-places  how  a  doom 
will  fall  upon  the  hall  and  the  great  name  die 
forgotten.  They  do  fearful  deeds  in  ghastly 
charnel-houses. 

No  tale  of  horror  is  complete  without  the 
rats.  In  stories  of  ghosts  and  murderers  they 
scamper  through  the  echoing  rooms,  and  the 
gnawing  of  their  teeth  is  heard  behind  the 
wainscot,  and  their  gleaming  eyes  peer  through 
the  holes  in  the  worm-eaten  tapestry,  and  they 
scream  in  shrill,  unearthly  notes  in  the  dead 
of  night,  while  the  moaning  wind  sweeps,  sob- 
bing, round  the  ruined  turret  towers,  and 
passes  wailing  like  a  woman  through  the  cham- 
bers bare  and  tenantless. 

And  dying  prisoners,  in  their  loathsome 
dungeons,  see  through  the  horrid  gloom  their 
small  red  eyes,  like  glittering  coals,  hear  in 
the  death-like  silence  the  rush  of  their  claw- 
like feet,  and  start  up  shrieking  in  the  darkness 
and  watch  through  the  awful  night. 


AN   IDLE   FELLOW  77 

I  love  to  read  tales  about  rats.  They  make 
my  flesh  creep  so.  I  like  that  tale  of  Bishop 
Hatto  and  the  rats.  The  wicked  bishop,  you 
know,  had  ever  so  much  corn  stored  in  his 
granaries  and  would  not  let  the  starving  peo- 
ple touch  it,  but  when  they  prayed  to  him  for 
food  gathered  themselves  together  in  his  barn, 
and  then  shutting  the  doors  on  them,  set  fire 
to  the  place  and  burned  them  all  to  death.  But 
next  day  there  came  thousands  upon  thousands 
of  rats,  sent  to  do  judgment  on  him.  Then 
Bishop  Hatto  fled  to  his  strong  tower  that 
stood  in  the  middle  of  the  Rhine,  and  barred 
himself  in  and  fancied  he  was  safe.  But  the 
rats!  they  swam  the  river,  they  gnawed  their 
way  through  the  thick  stone  walls,  and  ate  him 
alive  where  he  sat. 

"They    have    whetted    their     teeth    against    the 
stones. 
And  now  they  pick  the  bishop's  bones; 
They  gnawed   the  flesh  from  every  limb, 
For  they  were  sent  to  do  judgment  on  him." 
Oh,  it's  a  lovely  tale. 

Then  there  is  the  story  of  the  Pied  Piepe; 
of  Hamelin,  how  first  he  piped  the  rats  away 
and  afterward,  when  the  mayor  broke  faitl. 
with  him,  drew  all  the  children  along  with  him 
and  went  into  the  mountain.  What  a  curious 
old  legend  that  is!  I  wonder  what  it  means, 
or  has  it  any  meaning  at  all?  There  seems 
something  strange  and  deep  lying  hid  beneath 
the  rippling  rhyme.  It  haunts  me,  that  picture  of 
the  quaint,  mysterious  old  piper  piping  through 
Hamelin's  narrow  streets,  and  the  children 
following  with  dancin'T  feet  and  thoughtful 
eager  faces.    The  old  folks  try  to  stay  them,  but 


78  IDLE   THOUGHTS  OF 

the  children  pay  no  heed.  They  hear  the  weird, 
witched  Diusic  and  must  follow.  The  gamea 
tiic  left  unfinished  and  the  playthings  drop 
from  their  careless  hands.  They  know  not 
whither  they  are  hastening.  The  mystic  music 
calls  to  them,  and  they  follow,  heedless  and  un- 
asking  where.  It  stirs  and  vibrates  in  their 
hearts  and  other  sounds  grow  faint.  So  they 
wander  through  Pied  Pieper  Street  away  from 
Hamelin  town. 

I  get  thinking  sometimes  if  the  Pied  Piper 
is  really  dead,  or  if  he  hiay  not  still  be  roam- 
ing up  and  down  our  streets  and  lanes,  but 
playing  now  so  softly  that  only  the  children 
hear  him.  Why  do  the  little  faces  look  so 
grave  and  solemn  when  they  pause  awhile 
from  rompin!?,  and  stand,  deep  wrapt,  with 
straining  eyes?  They  only  shake  their  curly 
heads  and  dart  back  laughing  to  their  play- 
mates when  we  question  them.  But  I  fancy 
myself  they  have  been  listening  to  the  magic 
music  of  the  old  Pied  Piper,  and  perhaps  with 
those  bright  eyes  of  theirs  have  even  seen  his 
odd,  fantastic  fisrure  gliding  unnoticed  through 
the  whirl  and  throng. 

Even  we  grown-up  children  hear  his  piping 
now  and  then.  But  the  yearning  notes  are 
very  far  away,  and  the  noisy,  blustering  world 
is  always  bellowing  so  loud  it  drowns  the 
dream-like  melody.  One  day  the  sweet,  sad 
strains  will  sound  out  full  and  clear,  and  then 
we  too  shall,  like  the  little  children,  throw  our 
playthings  all  aside  and  follow.  The  loving 
hands  will  be  stretched  out  to  stay  us,  and  the 
voices  we  have  learned  to  listen  for  will  cry 


AN  IDLE   FELLOW  79 

.to  US  to  stop.  But  we  shall  push  the  bond  arms 
gently  back  and  pass  out  through  the  sorrow- 
ing house  and  through  the  open  door.  For  the 
wild,  strange  music  will  be  ringing  in  our 
hearts,  and  we  shall  know  the  meaning  of  its 
song  by  then. 

I  wish  people  could  love  animals  without 
getting  maudlin  over  them,  as  so  many  do. 
Women  are  the  most  hardened  offenders  in 
such  respects,  but  even  our  intellectual  sex 
often  degrade  pets  into  nuisances  by  absurd 
idolatry.  There  are  the  gushing  young  ladies 
who,  having  read  "David  Copperfield,"  have 
thereupon  sought  out  a  small,  long-haired  dog 
of  nondescript  breed,  possessed  of  an  irritat- 
ing habit  of  criticising  a  man's  trousers,  and  of 
finally  commenting  upon  the  same  by  a  sniff 
indicative  of  contempt  and  disgust.  They  talk 
sweet  girlish  prattle  to  this  animal  (when  there 
is  any  one  near  enough  to  overhear  thern), 
and  they  kiss  its  nose,  and  put  its  unwashed 
head  up  against  their  cheek  in  a  most  touch- 
ing manner;  though  I  have  noticed  that  these 
caresses  are  principally  performed  when  there 
are  young  men  hanging  about. 

Then  there  are  the  old  ladies  who  worship 
a  fat  poodle,  scant  of  breath  and  full  of  fleas. 
I  knew  a  couple  of  elderly  spinsters  once  who 
had  a  sort  of  German  sausage  on  legs  which 
they  called  a  dog  between  them.  They  used 
to  wash  its  face  with  warm  water  every  mo^-ri- 
ing.  It  had  n  mutton  cutlet  regularly  for 
breakfast;  and  on  Sundays,  when  one  of  the 
ladies  went  to  church,  the  other  always 
Stopped  at  home  to  keep  the  dog  company. 


so  IDLE   THOUGHTS  OF 

There  are  many  families  where  the  whole 
interest  of  life  is  centered  upon  the  dog.  Cats, 
by  the  way,  rarely  suffer  from  excess  of  adu- 
lation. A^cat  possesses  a  very  fair  sense  of  the 
ridiculous,*  and  will  put  her  paw  down  kindly 
but  firmly  upon  any  nonsense  of  this  kind. 
Dogs,  however,  seem  to  like  it.  They  encour- 
age their  owners  in  the  tomfoolery,  and  the 
consequence  is  that  in  ^he  circles  I  am  speak- 
ing of  what  "dear  Fido"  has  done,  does  do, 
will  do,  won't  do,  can  do,  can't  do,  was  doing, 
is  doing,  is  going  to  do,  shall  do,  shan't  do,  and 
is  about  to  be  going  to  have  done  is  the  con- 
tinual theme  of  discussion  from  morning  till 
night. 

All  the  conversation,  consisting,  as  it  does,  of 
the  very  dregs  of  imbecility,  is  addressed  to 
this  confounded  animal.  The  family  sit  in  a 
row  all  day  long,  watching  him,  commenting 
upon  his  actions,  telling  each  other  anecdotes 
about  him,  recalling  his  virtues,  and  remem 
bering  with,  tears  how  one  day  they  lost  him 
for  two  whole  hours,  on  which  occasion  he  was 
brought  home  in  a  most  brutal  manner  by  the 
butcher-boy,  who  had  been  met  carrying  him 
by  the  scruff  of  his  neck  with  one  hand, 
while  soundly  cuffing  his  head  with  the  other. 

After  recovering  from  these  bitter  recollec- 
tions, they  vie  with  each  other  in  bursts  of 
admiration  for  the  brute,  until  some  more  than 
usually  enthusiastic  member,  unable  any  lon- 
ger to  control  his  feelings,  swoops  down  upon 
It.  Whereupon  the  others,  mad  with  envy, 
the  unhappy  quadruped  in  a  frenzy  of  affec- 
tion, clutches  it  to  his  heart,  and  slobbers  over 


AN  IDLE   FELLOW  81 

rise  up,  and  seizing  as  much  of  the  dog  as 
the  greed  of  the  first  one  has  left  to  them, 
murmur  praise  and  devotion. 

Among  these  people  everything  is  done 
through  the  dog.  If  you  want  to  make  love  to 
the  eldest  daughter,  or  get  the  old  man  to  lend 
you  the  garden  roller,  or  the  mother  to  sub- 
scribe to  the  Society  for  the  Suppression  of 
Solo-Cornet  Players  in  Theatrical  Orchestras 
(it's  a  pity  there  isn't  one,  anyhow),  you  have 
to  begin  with  the  dog.  You  must  gain  its  ap- 
probation before  they  will  even  listen  to  you, 
and  if,  as  highly  probable,  the  animal,  whose 
frank,  doggy  nature  has  been  warped  by  the  un- 
natural treatment  he  has  received,  responds  to 
your  overtures  of  friendship  by  viciously  snap- 
ping at  you,  your  cause  is  lost  forever. 

"If  Fido  won't  take  to  any  one,"  the  father 
has  thoughtfully  remarked  beforehand,  "I  say 
that  man  is  not  to  be  trusted.  You  know, 
Maria,  how  often  I  have  said  that.  Ah!  he 
knows,  bless  him." 

Drat  him! 

And  to  think  that  the  surly  brute  was  once 
an  innocent  puppy,  all  legs  and  head,  full  of  fun 
and  play,  and  burning  with  ambition  to  be- 
come a  big,  good  dog  and  bark  like  mother. 

Ah  me!  life  sadly  changes  us  all.  The  world 
seems  a  vast  horrible  grinding  machine,  into 
which  what  is  fresh  and  bright  and  pure  is 
pushed  at  one  end,  to  come  out  old  and  crabbed 
and  wrinkled  at  the  other. 

Look  even  at  Pussy  Sobersides,  with  her  dull 
sleepy  glance,  her  grave,  slow  walk,  and  digni- 
fied, prudish  airs;   who  could  ever  think  that 


82  IDLE  THOUGHTS  OF 

once  she  was  th?  blu^-e^'^i  whirling,  scamper- 
ing, head-over-hecls,  mad  little  firework  that 
we  call  a  kitten? 

What  marvelous  vitality  a  kitten  has.  It  is 
really  something  very  beautiful  the  way  life 
bubbles  over  in  the  little  creatures.  They  rush 
about,  and  mew,  and  spring;  dance  on  their 
hind  legs,  embrace  everything  with  their  front 
ones,  roll  over  and  over,  lie  on  their  b^^cks  and 
kick.  They  don't  know  what  to  do  with  them- 
selves, they  are  so  full  of  life. 

Can  you  remember,  reader,  when  you  and  T 
felt  something  of  the  same  sort  of  thing? 
Can  you  remember  those  glorious  days  of  fresh 
young  manhood— rhow,  when  coming  home 
along  the  moonlit  road,  we  felt  too  full  of  life 
for  sober  walking,  and  had  to  spring  and  skip, 
and  wave  our  arms,  and  shout  till  ^Delated 
farmers'  wives  thought — and  with  good  rea- 
son.  too — that  we  were-  mad.  and  kent  close  to 
the  hedge,  while  we  stood  and  laughed  aloud 
to  see  them  scuttle  off  so  fast,  anc  made  their 
blood  run  cold  with  a  wild  n^rting  whoop,  and 
the  tears  came,  avg  knew  not  why?  Oh.  that 
m^ignificent  young  lifpf  that  crowned  us  kines 
of  the  earth:  that  rushed  through  every  ting- 
ling vein  till  we  seemed  to  walk  on  air:  that 
thrilled  through  our  throbbing  brains  and  told 
us  to  go  forth  and  conquer  the  whole  world: 
that  welled  up  in  our  young  hearts  till  we 
longed  to  stretch  cut  our  arms  and  gather  all 
the  toiling  men  and  women  and  the  little  chil- 
dren to  our  breast  and  love  them  all — all.  Ah! 
they  were  grand  davs,  those  deep,  full  davs, 
v/hen  our  coming  life,  like  an  unseen  organ, 


AN  IDLE   FELLOW  33 

pealed  strange,  yearnful  music  in  our  ears,  and 
our  young  blood  cried  out  like  a  war-horse  for 
the  battle.  Ah,  our  pulse  beats  slow  and  steady 
now,  and  our  old  joints  are  rheumatic,  and  we 
love  ovfr  easy-chair  and  pipe  and  sneer  at  boys' 
enthusiasm.  But  oh  for  one  brief  moment  of 
that  god-like  life  again! 

ON  BEING  SHY. 

All  great  literary  men  are  shy.  I  am  myself 
though  I  am  told  it  is  hardly  noticeable. 

I  am  glad  it  is  not.  It  used  to  be  extremely 
prominent  at  one  time,  and  was  the  cause  of 
much  misery  to  myself  and  discomfort  to  every 
one  about  me — my  lady  friends  especially  com- 
plained most  bitterly  about  it. 

A  shy  man's  lot  is  not  a  happy  one.  The  merf 
dislike  him,  the  women  despise  him,  and  he 
dislikes  and  despises  himself.  Use  brings  him 
no  relief,  and  there  is  no  cure  for  him  except 
time;  though  I  once  came  across  a  delicious 
recipe  for  overcoming  the  misfortune.  It  ap- 
peared among  the  "answers  to  correspondents" 
in  a  small  weekly  journal  and  ran  as  follows— 
I  have  never  forgotten  it:  "Adopt  an  easy 
and  pleasing  manner,  especially  toward  ladies." 

Poor  wretch!  I  can  imagine  the  grin  with 
which  he  must  have  read  that  advice.  "Adopt 
an  easy  and  pleasing  manner,  especially  toward 
ladies,"  forsooth!  Don't  you  adopt  anything  of 
the  kind,  my  dear  young  shy  friend.  Your  at-, 
tempt  to  put  on  any  o'ther  disposition  than 
you  own  will  infallibly  result  in  your  becoming 
ridiculously  gushing   and   offensively   familiar. 


84  IDLE  THOUGHTS  OF 

Be  your  own   natural  self,  and  then  you  will 
only  be  thought  to  be  surly  and  stupid. 

The  shy  man  does  have  some  slight  revenge 
upon  society  for  the  torture  it  inflicts  upon 
him.  He  is  able,  to  a  certain  extent,  to  com- 
municate his  misery.  He  frightens  other  peo- 
ple as  much  as  they  frighten  him.  He  acts 
like  a  damper  upon  the  whole  room,  and  the 
most  jovial  spirits  become  in  his  presence  de- 
pressed and  nervous. 

This  is  a  good  deal  brought  about  by  mis- 
understanding. Many  people  mistake  the  shy 
man's  timidity  for  overbearing  arrogance  and 
are  awed  and  insulted  by  it.  His  awkwardness 
is  resented  as  insolent  carelessness,  and  when, 
terror-stricken  at  the  first  word  addressed  to 
him,  the  blood  rushes  to  his  head  and  the 
power  of  speech  completely  fails  him,  he  is 
regarded  as  an  awful  example  of  the  evil 
effects   of  giving   way  to   passion. 

But,  indeed,  to  be  misunderstood  is  fhe  shy 
man's  fate  on  every  occasion;  and  whatever 
impression  he  endeavors  to  create,  he  is  sure 
to  convey  its  opposite.  When  he  makes  a  joke, 
it  is  looked  upon  as  a  pretended  relation  of 
fact  and  his  want  of  veracity  much  condemned. 
His  sarcasm  is  accepted  as  his  literal  opinion 
and  gains  for  him  the  reputation  of  being  an 
ass,  while  if,  on  the  other  hand,  wishing  to  in- 
gratiate himself,  he  ventures  upon  a  litile  bit , 
of  flattery,  it  is  taken  for  satire  and  he  is 
hated  ever  afterward. 

These  and  the  rest  of  a  shy  man's  troubles 
are  always  very  amusing  to  other  people,  and 
have  afforded  material  for  comic  writing  from 


AN  IDLE   FELLOW  85 

time  immemorial.  But  if  we  look  a  little  deeper 
we  shall  find  there  is  a  pathetic,  one  might 
almost  say  a  tragic,  side  to  the  picture.  A  shy- 
man  means  a  lonely  man — a  man  cut  off  from 
all  companionship,  all  sociability.  He  moves 
about  the  world,  but  does  not  mix  with  it. 
Between  him  and  his  fellow-men  there  runs 
ever  an  impassable  barrier — a  strong,  invisible 
wall  that,  trying  in  vain  to  scale,  he  but  bruises 
himself  against.  He  sees  the  pleasant  faces 
and  hears  the  pleasant  voices  on  the  other 
side,  but  he  cannot  stretch  his  hand  across  to 
grasp  another  hand.  He  stands  watching  the 
merry  groups,  and  he  longs  to  speak  and  to 
claim  kindred  with  them.  But  they  pass  him 
by  chatting  gayly  to  one  another,  and  he  can- 
not stay  them.  He  tries  to  reach  them,  but  his 
prison  walls  move  with  him  and  hem  him  in  on 
every  side.  In  a  busy  street,  in  the  crowded 
room,  in  the  grind  of  work,  in  the  whirl  of 
pleasure,  amid  the  many  or  amid  the  few — 
wherever  men  congregate  together,  wherever 
the  music  of  human  speech  is  heard  and  human 
thought  is  flashed  from  human  eyes,  there, 
shunned  and  solitary,  the  shy  man,  like  a  leper, 
stands  apart.  His  soul  is  full  of  love  and  long- 
ing, but  the  world  knows  it  not.  The  iron 
mask  of  shyness  is  riveted  before  his  face,  and 
the  man  beneath  is  never  seen.  Genial  words 
and  hearty  greetings  are  ever  rising  to  his 
lips,  but  they  die  away  in  unheard  whispers 
behind  the  steel  clamps.  His  heart  aches  for 
the  weary  brother,  but  his  sympathy  is  dumb. 
Contempt  and  indignaflon  against  wrong  choke 
up    his    throat,    and    finding    no    saf«ty-valv€ 


86  IDLE   THOUGHTS  OF 

v/hence  in  passionate  utterance  they  may  burst 
ijrth,  they  only  turn  in  again  and  harm  him. 
All  the  hate  and  scorn  and  love  of  a  deep 
nature  such  as  the  shy  man  is  ever  cursed  by 
fester  and  corrupt  within,  insead  of  spending 
themselves  abroad,  and  sour  him  into  a  mis- 
anthrope  and   cynic. 

Yes,  shy  men,  like  shy  women,  have  a  bad 
time  of  it  in  this  world,  to  go  through  which 
with  any  comfort  needs  the  hide  of  a  rhinoc- 
eros. Thick  skin  is,  indeed,  our  moral  clothes 
and  without  it  we  are  not  fit  to  be  seen  abeut 
in  civilized  society.  A  poor  gasping,  blushing 
creature,  with  trembling  knees  and  twitching 
hands,  is  a  painful  sight  to  every  one,  and  if 
it  cannot  cure  itself,  the  sooner  it  goes  and 
hangs  itself  the  better. 

The  disease  can  be  cured.  For  the  comfort 
of  the  shy,  I  can  assure  them  of  that  from  per- 
sonal experience.  I  do  not  like  speaking  about 
myself,  as  may  have  been  noticed,  but  in  the 
cause  of  humanity  I  on  this  occasion  will  do 
so,  and  will  confess  that  at  one  time  I  was, 
as  the  young  man  in  the  Bab  Ballad  says,  "the 
shyest  of  the  shy,"  and  "whenever  I  was  in- 
troduced to  any  pretty  maid,  my  knees  they 
knocked  together  just  as  if  I  was  afraid."  Now, 
I  would — nay,  have — on  this  very  day  before 
yesterday  I  did  the  deed.  Alone  and  entirely 
by  myself  (as  the  school-boy  said  in  translat- 
ing the  "Bellum  Gallicum")  did  I  beard  a  rail- 
way refreshment-room  young  lady  in  her  own 
lair.  I  rebuked  her  in  terms  of  mingled  bitter- 
ness and  sorrow  for  her  callousness  and  want 
of   condescension.     I   insisted,  courteously  but 


AN  IDLE  FELLOW  87 

firmly,  on  being  accorded  that  deference  and 
attention  that  was  the  right  of  the  traveling 
Briton,  and  at  the  end  I  looked  her  full  in  the 
face.    Need  I  say  more? 

True,  immediately  after  doing  so  I  le^^t  the 
room  with  what  may  possibly  have  ap'peared 
to  be  precipitation  and  without  waiting  for 
any  refreshment.  But  that  was  because  I  had 
changed  my  mind,  not  because  I  was  frightened 
you  understand. 

One  consolation  that  shy  folk  can  take  unto 
themselves  is  that  shyness  is  certainly  no  sign 
of  stupidity.  It  is  easy  enough  for  bull-headed 
clowns  to  sneer  at  nerves,  but  the  highest  na- 
tures are  not  necessarily  those  containing  the 
greatest  amount  of  moral  brass.  The  horse  is 
not  an  inferior  animal  to  the  cock-sparrow,  nor 
the  deer  of  the  forest  to  the  pig.  Shyness  sim- 
ply means  extreme  sensibility,  and  has  nothing 
whatever  to  do  with  self-consciousness  or  with 
conceit,  though  its  relationship  to  both  is  con- 
tinually insisted  upon  by  the  poll-parrot  school 
of  philosophy. 

Conceit,  indeed,  is  the  quickest  cure  for  it. 
When  it  once  begins  to  dawn  upon  you  that 
you  are  a  good  deal  cleverer  than  anyone  else 
in  this  world,  bashfulness  becomes  shocked  and 
leaves  you.  When  you  can  look  round  a  room- 
ful of  people  and  think  that  each  one  is  a  mere 
child  in  intellect  compared  with  yourself,  you 
feel  no  more  shy  of  them  than  you  would  of  a 
select  company  of  magpies  or  orang-outangs. 

Conceit  is  the  finest  armor  that  a  man  can 
wear.  Upon  its  smooth,  impenetrable  surface 
the    puny    dagger-thrusts    of    spite    and    envy 


88  IDLE  THOUGPITS  OP 

glance  harmlessly  aside.  Without  that  breast- 
plate the  sword  of  talent  cannot  force  its  way 
through  the  battle  of  life,  for  blows  have  to  be 
borne  as  well  as  dealt.  I  do  not,  of  course,  speak 
to  th^  conceit  that  displays  itself  in  an  ele- 
vated nose  and  a  falsetto  voice.  That  is  not 
real  conceit — that  is  only  playing  at  being  con- 
ceited; like  children  play  at  being  kings  and 
queens  and  go  strutting  about  with  feathers  and 
long  trains.  Genuine  conceit  does  not  make  a 
man  objectionable.  On  the  contrary,  it  tends 
to  make  him  genial,  kind-hearted,  and  simple. 
He  has  no  need  of  affectation — he  is  far  too 
well  satisfied  with  his  own  character;  and  his 
pride  is  too  deep-seated  to  appear  at  all  on  the 
outside.  Careless  alike  of  praise  cr  blame,  he 
can  afford  to  be  truthful.  Too  far,  in  fancy, 
above  the  rest  of  mankind  ';o  trouble  about 
their  petty  distinctions,  he  is  equally  at  home 
with  duke  or  costermonger.  And  valuing  no 
one's  standard  but  his  own,  he  is  never  tempt- 
ed to  practice  that  miserable  pretense  that  less 
self-reliant  people  offer  up  as  an  hourly  sacri- 
fice to  the  god  of  their  neighbor's  opinion. 

The  shy  man,  on  the  other  hand,  is  humble — 
modest  of  his  own  judgment  and  over-anxious 
concerning  that  of  others.  But  this  in  the  case 
of  a  young  man  is  surely  right  enough.  His 
character  is  unformed.  It  is  slowly  evolving 
itself  out  of  a  chaos  of  doubt  and  disbelief. 
Before  the  growing  insight  and  experience  the 
diffidence  recedes.  A  man  rarely  carries  his 
shyness  past  the  hobbledehoy  period.  Even  if 
his  own  inward  strength  does  not  throw  it  off, 
the  rubbings  of  the  wcrld  generally  smooth  it 


AN  IDL.E   FEKLOW  89 

down.  You  scarcely  ever  meet  a  really  shy 
man — except  in  novels  or  on  the  stage,  where, 
by  the  bye,  he  is  much  admired,  especially  by 
the  women. 

There,  in  that  supernatural  land,  he  appears 
as  a  fair-haired  and  saint-ljke  young  man — 
fair  hair  and  goodness  always  go  together  on 
the  stage.  No  respectable  audience  would  be- 
lieve in  one  without  the  other.  I  knew  an 
actor  who  mislaid  his  wig  once  and  had  to 
rush  on  to  play  the  hero  in  his  own  hair,  which 
was  jet-black,  and  the  gallery  howled  at  all 
his  noble  sentiments  under  the  impression  that 
he  was  the  villain.  He — the  shy  young  man — 
loves  the  heroine,  oh  so  devotedly  (but  only 
in  asides,  for  he  dare  not  tell  her  of  it),  and 
he  Is  so  noble  and  unselfish,  and  speaks  in 
such  a  low  voice,  and  is  so  good  to  his  mother; 
and  the  bad  people  in  the  play,  they  laugh  at 
him  and  jeer  at  him,  but  he  takes  it  all  so 
gently,  and  in  the  end  it  transpires  that  he  is 
such  a  clever  man,  though  nobody  knew  it,  and 
then  the  heroine  tells  him  she  loves  him,  and 
he  is  so  surprised,  and  oh,  so  happy!  and 
everybody  loves  him  and  asks  him  to  forgivb 
them,  which  he  does  in  a  few  well-chosen  and 
sarcastic  words,  and  blesses  them;  and  he 
seems  to  have  generally  such  a  good  time  of 
it  that  all  the  young  fellows  who  are  not  shy 
long  to  be  shy.  But  the  really  shy  man  knows 
better.  He  knows  that  it  is  not  quite  so  pleas- 
ant in  reality.  He  is  not  quite  so  interesting 
there  as  in  the  fiction.  He  is  a  little  more 
clumsy  and  stupid  and  a  little  less  devoted 
and  gentle,  and  his  hair  is  much  darker,  which. 


90  IDLE  THOUGHTS  OF 

taken  altogether,  considerably  alters  the  as- 
pect of  the  case. 

The  point  where  he  does  resemble  his  ideal 
is  in  his  faithfulness.  I  am  fully  prepared  to 
allow  the  shy  young  man  that  virtue:  he  is 
constant  in  his  love.  But  the  reason  is  not 
far  to  seek.  The  fact  is  it  exhausts  all  his 
stock  of  courage  to  look  one  woman  in  the 
face,  and  it  would  be  simply  impossible  for 
him  to  go  through  the  ordeal  with  a  second. 
He  stands  in  far  too  much  dread  of  the  whole 
female  sex  to  want  to  go  gadding  about  with 
many  of  them.     One  is  quite  enough  for  him. 

Now,  it  is  different  wi:.h  the  young  man  who 
is  not  shy.  He  has  temptations  which  his 
bashful  brother  never  encounters.  He  looks 
around  and  everywhere  sees  roguish  eyes  and 
laughing  lips.  What  more  natural  than  that 
amid  so  many  roguish  eyes  and  laughing  lips 
he  should  become  confused  and,  forgetting  for 
the  moment  which  particular  pair  of  roguish 
eyes  and  laughing  lips  it  is  that  he  belongs 
to,  go  off  making  love  to  the  wrong  set.  The 
shy  man,  who  never  looks  at  anything  but  his 
own  boots,  sees  not  and  is  not  tempted.  Happy 
shy  man! 

Not  but  what  the  shy  man  himself  would 
much  rather  not  be  happy  in  that  way.  He 
longs  to  "go  it"  with  the  others,  and  curses 
himself  every  day  for  not  being  able  to.  He 
will  now  and  again,  screwing  up  his  courage 
by  a  tremendous  effort,  plunge  into  roguish- 
ness.  But  it  is  always  a  terrible  fiasco,  and 
after  one  or  two  feeble  flounders  he  crawls  out 
again,  limp  and   pitiable. 


AN  IDLE  FELLOW  91 

I  say  "pitiable,"  though  I  am  afraid  he  never 
is  pitied.  There  are  certain  misfortunes  which, 
while  inflicting  a  vast  amount  of  suffering  upon 
their  victims,  gain  for  them  no  sympathy. 
Losing  an  umbrella,  falling  in  love,  toothache, 
black  eyes,  and  having  your  hat  sat  upon  may 
be  mentioned  as  a  few  examples,  but  the  chief 
of  them  all  is  shyness.  The  shy  man  is  re- 
garded as  an  animate  joke.  His  tortures  are 
the  sport  of  the  drawing  room  arena  and  are 
pointed  out  and  discussed  with  much  gusto. 

"Look,"  cry  his  tittering  audience  to  each 
other;    "he's  blushing!" 

"Just   watch   his   legs,"   says    one. 

"Do  you  notice  how  he  is  sitting?"  adds  an- 
other:   "right  on  the  edge   of  the  chair." 

"Seems  to  have  plenty  of  color,"  sneers  a 
military-looking  gentleman. 

"Pity  he's  got  so  many  hands,"  murmurs  an 
elderly  lady,  with  her  own  calmly  folded  on 
her  lap.     "They  quite  confuse  him." 

"A  yard  or  two  off  his  feet  wouldn't  be  a 
disadvantage,"  chimes  in  the  comic  man,  "es- 
pecially as  he  seems  so  anxious  to  hide  them." 

And  then  another  suggests  that  with  such  a 
voice  he  ought  to  have  been  a  sea-captain. 
Some  draw  attention  to  the  desperate  way  in 
which  he  is  grasping  his  hat.  Some  comment 
upon  his  limited  powers  of  conversation.  Others 
remark  upon  the  troublesome  nature  of  his 
cough.  And  so  on,  until  his  peculiarities  and 
the  company  are  both  thoroughly  exhausted. 

His  friends  and  relations  make  matters  still 
more  unpleasant  for  the  poor  boy  (friends  and 
relations   are  privileged   to  be   more   disagree- 


92  IDLE  'rHOUGHTS  OF 

able  than  other  people).  Not  content  with  mak- 
ing fun  of  him  among  themselves,  they  insist 
on  his  seeing  the  joke.  They  mimic  and  cari- 
cature him  for  his  own  edification.  One,  pre- 
tending to  imitate  him,  goes  outside  and  comes 
in  again  in  a  ludicrously  nervous  manner,  ex- 
plaining to  him  afterward  that  that  is  the 
v/ay  he — meaning  the  shy  fellow — walks  into  a 
room ;  or,  turning  to  him  with  "This  is  the 
way  you  shake  hands,"  proceeds  to  go  through 
a  comic  pantomime  with  the  rest  of  the  room, 
taking  hold  of  every  one's  hand  as  if  it  were 
a  hot  plate  and  flabbily  dropping  it  again. 
And  then  they  ask  him  why  he  blushes,  and 
why  he  stammers  and  why  he  always  speaks  in 
an  almost  inaudible  tone,  as  if  they  thought 
he  did  it  on  purpose.  Then  one  of  them,  stick- 
ing out  his  chest  and  strutting  about  the  room 
like  a  pouter-pigeon,  suggests  quite  seriously 
that  that  is  the  style  he  should  adopt.  The  old 
man  slaps  him  on  the  back  and  says:  "Be  bold, 
my  boy.  Don't  be  afraid  of  any  one."  The 
mother  says,  "Never  do  anything  that  you  need 
be  ashamed  of,  Algernon,  and  then  you  never 
need  be  ashamed  of  anything  you  do,"  and, 
beaming  mildly  ar  him,  seems  surprised  at 
the  clearness  of  her  own  logic.  The  boys  tell 
him  that  he's  "worse  than  a  girl,"  and  the 
girls  repudiate  the  implied  slur  upon  their  sex 
by  indignantly  exclaiming  that  they  are  sure 
no  girl  would  be  half  as  bad. 

They  are  quite  right;  no  girl  would  be.  There 
is  no  such  thing  as  a  shy  woman,  or,  at  all 
events,  I  have  never  come  across  one,  and 
until  I  do  I  shall  not  believe  in  them.     I  know 


AN  IDLE   FELLOW  93 

that  the  generally  accepted  belief  is  quite  the 
reverse.  All  women  are  supposed  to  be  like 
timid,  startled  fawns,  blushing  and  casting  down 
their  gentle  eyes  when  looked  at  and  running 
away  when  spoken  to;  while  we  men  are  sup- 
posed to  be  a  bold  and  rollicky  lot,  and  the 
poor,  dear  little  women  admire  us  for  it,  but 
are  terribly  afraid  of  us.  It  is  a  pretty  theory, 
but,  like  most  generally  accepted  theories,  mere 
nonsense.  The  girl  of  twelve  is  self-contained 
and  as  cool  as  the  proverbial  cucumber,  while 
her  brother  of  twenty  stammers  and  stutters 
by  her  side.  A  woman  will  enter  a  concert- 
room  late,  interrupt  the  performance,  and  dis- 
turb the  whole  audience  without  moving  a  hair, 
while  her  husband  follows  her,  a  crushed  heap 
of  apologizing  misery. 

The  superior  nerve  of  women  in  all  matters 
connected  with  love,  from  the  casting  of  the 
first  sheep's-eye  down  to  the  end  of  the  honey- 
moon, is  too  well  acknowledged  to  need  com- 
ment. Nor  is  the  example  a  fair  one  to  cite 
in  the  present  instance,  the  positions  not  being 
equally  balanced.  Love  is  woman's  business, 
and  in  "business"  we  all  lay  aside  our  natural 
weaknesses — the  shyest  man  I  ever  knew  was 
a  photographic  tout. 

ON  BABIES. 
Oh,  yes,  I  do — I  know  a  lot  about  'em.  I  was 
one  myself  once,  though  not  long — not  so  long 
as  my  clothes.  They  were  very  long,  I  recol- 
lect, and  always  in  my  way  when  I  wanted  to 
kick.  Why  do  babies  have  such  yards  of  un- 
necessary clothing?    It  is  not  a  riddle.    I  really 


94  IDLE  THOUGHTS  OF 

want  to  know.  I  never  could  understand  it.  Is 
it  that  the  parents  are  ashamed  of  the  size  of 
the  child  and  wish  to  make  believe  that  it  is 
longer  than  it  actually  is?  I  asked  a  nurse 
once  why  it  was.     She  said: 

"Lor',  sir,  they  always  have  long  clothes, 
bless  their  little  hearts." 

And  when  I  explained  that  her  answer,  al- 
though doing  credit  to  her  feelings,  hardly  dis- 
posed of  my  difficulty,  she  replied: 

"Lor',  sir,  you  wouldn't  have  'em  in  short 
clothes,  poor  little  dears?"  And  she  said  it  in 
a  tone  that  seemed  to  imply  I  had  suggested 
some  unmanly  outrage. 

Since  then  I  have  felt  shy  at  making  in- 
quiries on  the  subject,  and  the  reason — if 
reason  there  be — is  still  a  mystery  to  me.  But 
indeed,  putting  them  in  any  clothes  at  all  seems 
absurd  to  my  mind.  Goodness  knov/s  there  is 
enough  of  dressing  and  undressing  to  be  gone 
through  in  life  without  beginning  it  before  we 
need;  and  one  would  think  that  people  who  live 
in  bed  might  at  all  events  be  spared  the  tor- 
ture. Why  wake  the  poor  little  w:  etches  up 
in  the  morning  to  take  one  lot  of  clothes  off, 
fix  another  lot  on,  and  put  them  to  bed  again, 
and  then  at  night  haul  them  out  once  more, 
merely  to  change  everything  back?  And  when 
all  is  done,  what  difference  is  there,  I  should 
like  to  know,  between  a  baby's  night-shirt  and 
the  thing  it  wears  in  the  day-time? 

Very  likely,  however,  I  am  only  making  my- 
self ridiculous — I  often  do,  so  I  am  informed — 
and  I  will  therefore  say  no  more  upon  this 
matter  of  clothes,  except  only  that  It  wouid  be 


AN  IDLE  FELLOW  95 

of  great  convenience  if  some  fashion  was 
adopted  enabling  you  to  tell  a  boy  from  a  girl. 

At  present  it  is  most  awkward.  Neither  hair, 
dress,  nor  conversation  afford  the  slightest 
clew,  and  you  are  left  to  guess.  By  some  mys- 
terious law  of  nature  you  invariably  guess 
wrong,  and  are  thereupon  regarded  by  all  the 
relatives  and  friends  as  a  mixture  of  fool  and 
knave,  the  enormity  of  alluding  to  a  male  babe 
as  "she"  being  only  equaled  by  the  atrocity 
of  referring  to  a  female  infant  as  "he."  Which- 
ever sex  the  particular  child  in  question  hap- 
pens not  to  belong  to  is  considered  as  beneath 
contempt,  and  any  mention  of  it  is  taken  as  a 
personal  insult  to  the  family. 

And  as  you  value  your  fair  name  do  not 
attempt  to  get  out  of  the  difficulty  by  talking 
of  "it."  There  are  various  methods  by  which 
you  may  achieve  ignominy  and  shame.  By 
murdering  a  large  and  respected  family  in  cold 
blood  and  afterward  depositing  their  bodies  in 
the  water  companies'  reservoir,  you  will  gain 
much  unpopularity  in  the  neighborhood  of  your 
crime,  and  even  robbing  a  church  will  get  you 
cordially  disliked,  especially  by  the  vicar.  But 
If  you  desire  to  drain  to  the  dregs  the  fullest 
cup  of  scorn  and  hatred  that  a  fellow  human 
creature  can  pour  out  for  you,  let  a  young 
mother  hear  you  call  dear  baby  "it." 

Your  best  plan  is  to  address  the  article  as 
"little  angel."  The  noun  "angel"  being  of  com- 
mon gender  suits  the  case  admirably,  and  the 
epithet  is  sure  of  being  favorably  received. 
"Pet"  or  "beauty"  are  useful  for  variety's 
sake,  but  "angel"  is  the  term  that  brings  you 


0^  IDLE  THOUGHTS  OF 

the  greatest  credit  for  sense  and  good-feeling. 
The  word  should  be  preceded  by  a  short  giggle 
and  accompanied  by  as  much  smile  as  po'5- 
sible.  And  whatever  you  do,  don't  forget  to 
say  that  the  child  has  got  its  father's  nose. 
This  "fetches"  the  parents  (if  I  may  be  allowed 
a  vulgarism)  more  than  anything.  They  will 
pretend  to  laugh  at  the  idea  at  first  and  will 
sa5%  "Oh,  nonsense!"  You  must  then  get 
excited  and  insist  that  it  is  a  fact.  You  need 
have  no  conscientious  scruples  on  the  subject, 
because  the  thing's  nose  really  does  resemble 
its  father's — at  all  events  quite  as  much  as  it 
does  anything  else  in  nature — being,  as  it  is, 
a  mere  smudge. 

Do  not  despise  these  hints,  my  friends.  There 
may  come  a  time  when,  with  mamma  on  one 
side  and  grandmamma  on  the  other,  a  group  of 
admiring  young  ladies  (not"  admiring  you, 
though)  behind,  and  a  bald-headed  dab  of 
humanity  in  front,  you  will  be  extremely  thank- 
ful for  some  idea  of  what  to  say.  A  man — an 
unmarried  man,  that  is — is  never  seen  to  such 
disadvantage  as  when  undergoing  the  ordeal 
of  "seeing  baby."  A  cold  shudder  runs  down 
his  back  at  the  bare  proposal,  and  the  sickly 
smile  with  which  he  says  how  delighted  he 
shall  be  ought  surely  to  move  even  a  mother's 
heart,  unless,  as  I  am  inclined  to  believe,  the 
whole  proceeding  is  a  mere  device  adopted  by 
wives  to  discourage  the  visits  of  bachelor 
friends. 

It  is  a  cruel  trick,  though,  whatever  its 
excuse  may  be.  The  bell  is  rung  and  some- 
body sent   to  tell  nurse  to  bring   baby   down. 


AN  IDLE  FELLOW  97 

This  is  the  signal  for  all  the  females  present 
to  commence  talking  "baby,"  during  which 
time  you  are  left  to  your  own  sad  thoughts 
and  the  speculations  upon  the  practicability 
of  suddenly  recollecting  an  important  engage- 
ment, and  the  likelihood  of  your  being  believed 
if  you  do.  Just  when  you  have  concocted  an 
absurdly  implausible  tale  about  a  man  outside, 
the  door  opens,  and  a  tall,  severe-looking 
woman  enters,  carrying  what  at  first  sight 
appears  to  be  a  particularly  skinny  bolster, 
with  the  feathers  all  at  one  end.  Instinct, 
however,  tells  you  that  this  is  the  baby,  and  you 
rise  with  a  miserable  attempt  at  appearing 
eager.  When  the  first  gush  of  feminine  en- 
thusiasm with  which  the  object  in  question  is 
received  has  died  out,  and  the  number  of  ladies 
talking  at  once  has  been  reduced  to  the 
ordinary  four  or  five,  the  circle  of  fluttering 
petticoats  divides,  and  room  is  made  for  you 
to  step  forward.  This  you  do  with  much  the 
same  air  that  you  would  walk  into  the  dock 
at  Bow  Street,  and  then,  feeling  unutterably 
miserable,  you  stand  solemnly  staring  at  the 
child.  There  is  dead  silence,  and  you  know 
that  every  one  is  waiting  for  you  to  speak. 
You  try  to  think  of  something  to  say,  but  find, 
to  your  horror,  that  your  reasoning  faculties 
have  left  you.  It  is  a  moment  of  despair,  and 
your  evil  genius,  seizing  the  opportunity,  sug- 
gests to  you  some  of  the  most  idiotic  remarks 
that  it  is  possible  for  a  human  being  to  per- 
petrate. Glancing  round  with  an  imbe-cile 
smile,  you  sniggeringly  observe  that  "it  hasn't 
got  much  hair,  has  it?"     Nobody  answers  you 


98  IDLE  THOUCHTS  OF 

fo?  a  minuto.  but  at  last  Va-^  stut^ly  nurse  says 
with  much  gruvlty:  "I I  is  not  customary  for 
children  five  wcehs  old  to  have  long  hair." 
Another  silence  follows  this,  and  you  feel  you 
are  being  given  a  second  chance,  which  you 
avail  yourself  of  by  inquiring  if  it  can  Vv^alk 
yet,  or  what  they  feed  it  on. 

By  this  time  you  have  got  to  be  regarded  as 
not  quite  right  in  your  head,  and  pity  is  the 
only  thing  felt  for  you.  The  nurse,  however,  is 
determined  that,  insane  or  not,  there  shall  be 
no  shirking  and  that  you  shall  go  through  your 
task  to  the  end.  In  the  tones  of  a  high 
priestess  directing  some  religious  mystery  she 
says,  holding  the  bundle  toward  you:  "Take 
her  in  your  arms,  sir."  You  are  too  crushed 
to  offer  any  resistance  and  so  meekly  accept 
the  burden.  "Put  your  arm  more  down  her 
middle,  sir,"  says  the  high-priestess,  and  then 
all  step  back  and  watch  you  intently  as  though 
you  are  going  to  do  a  trick  with  it. 

What  to  do  you  know  no  more  than  you  did 
what  to  say.  It  is  certain  something  must  be 
done,  and  the  only  thing  that  occurs  to  you 
is  to  heave  the  unhappy  infant  up  and  down 
to  the  accompaniment  of  "oopsee-daisy,"  or 
some  remark  of  equal  intelligence.  "I  wouldn't 
jig  her,  sir,  if  I  were  you,"  says  the  nurse;  "a 
very  little  upsets  her."  You  promptly  decide 
not  to  jig  her  and  sincerely  hope  that  you 
have  not  gone  too  far  already. 

At  this  point  the  child  itself,  who  has 
hitherto  been  regarding  you  with  an  expression 
of  mingled  horror  and  disgust,  puts  an  end  to 
the  nonsense  by  beginning  to  yell  at  the  top  of 


AN   IDLE   FELLOW  99 

its  voice,  at  which  the  priestess  rushes  forward 
unci  snatches  it  from  you  with  "There!  there  1 
there!  What  did  urns  do  to  urns?''  "How  very 
extraordinary  I"  you  say  pleasantly.  "What- 
ever made^  it  go  off  like  that?"  "Oh,  why,  you 
must  have  done  something  to  her!"  says  the 
mother  indignantly;  "the  child  wouldn't  scream 
like  that  for  nothing."  It  is  evident  they  think 
j'ou  have  been  running  pins  into  it. 

The  brat  is  calmed  at  last,  and  would  no 
doubt  remain  quiet  enough,  only  fcOme  mis- 
chievous busybody  points  you  out  again  with 
"Who's  this,  baby?"  and  the  intelligent  child, 
recognizing  you,  howls  louder  than  ever. 

Whereupon  some  fat  old  lady  remarks  that 
"it's  strange  how  children  take  a  dislike  to 
any  one."  "Oh,  they  know,"  replies  another 
mysteriously.  "It's  a  wonderful  thing,"  adds  a 
third;  and  then  everybody  looks  sideways  at 
you,  convinced  you  are  a  scoundrel  of  the 
blackest  dye;  and  they  glory  in  the  beautiful 
idea  that  your  true  character,  unguessed  by 
your  fellow-men,  has  been  discovered  by  the 
untaught  instinct  of  a  little  child. 

Babies,  though,  with  all  their  crimes  and 
errors,  are  not  without  their  use — not  without 
use,  surely,  when  they  fill  an  empty  heart;  not 
without  use  when,  at  their  call,  sunbeams  of 
love  break  through  care-clouded  faces;  not 
without  use  when  their  little  fingers  press 
wrinkles  into  smiles. 

Odd  little  people!  They  are  the  unconscious 
comedians  of  the  world's  great  stage.  They 
supply  the  humor  in  life's  all-too-heavy  drama. 
Each  one,  a  small   but  determined  opposition 


100  IDLE   THOUGHTS  OF 

to  the  order  of  things  in  general,  is  forever 
doing  the  wrong  thing  at  the  wrong  time,  in 
the  wrong  place  and  in  the  wrong  way.  The 
nurse-girl  who  sent  Jenny  to  see  what  Tommy 
and  Totty  were  doing  and  "tell  'em  they 
mustn't"  knew  infantile  nature.  Give  an 
average  baby  a  fair  chance,  and  if  it  doesn't 
do  something  it  oughtn't  to  a  doctor  should  be 
called  in  at  once. 

They  have  a  genius  for  doing  the  most 
ridiculous  things,  and  they  do  them  in  a  grave, 
stoical  manner  that  is  irresistible.  The  busi- 
ness-like air  with  which  two  of  them  will  join 
hands  and  proceed  due  east  at  a  break-neck 
toddle,  while  an  excitable  big  sister  is  roaring 
for  them  to  follow  her  in  a  westerly  direction, 
is  most  amusing — except,  perhaps,  for  the  big 
sister.  They  walk  round  a  soldier,  staring  at 
his  legs  with  the  greatest  curiosity,  and  poke 
him  to  see  if  he  is  real.  They  stoutly  main- 
tain, against  all  argument  and  much  to  the  dis- 
comfort of  the  victim,  that  the  bashful  young 
man  at  the  end  of  the  'bus  is  "dadda,"  A 
crowded  street-corner  suggests  itself  to  their 
minds  as  a  favorable  spot  for  the  discussion  of 
family  affairs  at  a  shrill  treble.  When  in  the 
middle  of  crossing  the  road  they  are  seized 
with  a  sudden  impulse  to  dance,  and  the  door- 
step of  a  busy  shop  is  the  place  they  always 
select  for  sitting  down  and  taking  off  their 
shoes. 

When  at  home  they  find  the  biggest  walking- 
stick  in  the  house  or  an  umbrella — open  pre- 
ferred— of  much  assistance  in  getting  upstairs. 
They  discover  that  they  love  Mary  Ann  at  the 


AN  IDLE  FELLOW  101 

precise  moment  when  that  faithful  domestic  is 
blackleading  the  stove,  and  nothing  will  relieve 
their  feelings  but  to  embrace  her  then  and 
there.  With  regard  to  food,  their  favorite 
dishes  are  coke  and  cat's  meat.  They  nurse 
pussy  upside  down,  and  they  show  their  affec- 
tion for  the  dog  by  pulling  his  tail. 

They  are  a  deal  of  trouble,  an^  they  make  a 
place  untidy  and  they  cost  a  lot  of  money  to 
keep;  but  still  you  would  not  have  the  house 
without  them.  It  would  not  be  home  without 
their  noisy  tongues  and  their  mischief-making 
hands.  Would  not  the  rooms  seem  silent  with- 
out their  pattering  feet,  and  might  not  you 
stray  apart  if  no  prattling  voices  called  you 
together? 

It  should  be  so,  and  yet  I  have  sometimes 
thought  the  tiny  hand  seemed  as  a  wedge, 
dividing.  It  is  a  bearish  task  to  quarrel  with 
that  purest  of  all  human  affections — that  per- 
fecting touch  to  a  woman's  life — a  mother's 
love.  It  is  a  holy  love,  that  we  coarser-fibered 
men  can  hardly  understand,  and  I  would  not 
be  deemed  to  lack  reverence  for  it  when  I  say 
that  surely  it  need  not  sv\^allow  up  all  other 
affection.  The  baby  need  not  take  your  whole 
heart,  like  the  rich  man  who  walled  up  the 
desert  well.  Is  there  not  another  thirsty 
traveler  standing  by? 

In  your  desire  to  be  a  good  mother,  do  not 
forget  to  be  a  good  wife.  No  need  for  all  the 
thought  and  care  to  be  only  for  one.  Do  not, 
whenever  poor  Edwin  wants  you  to  come  out, 
answer  indignantly,  "What,  and  leave  baby!" 
Do  not  spend  all  your  evenings  upstairs,  and 


102  IDLE  THOUGHTS  OF 

do  not  eoofiue  your  conversation  exclusively 
to  whooping-cough  and  measles.  My  dear  little 
woman,  the  child  is  not  going  to  die  every  time 
it  sneezes,  the  house  is  net  bound  to  get  burned 
down  and  the  nurse  run  r.way  with  a  soldier 
every  time  you  go  outside  the  front  door;  nor 
the  cat  sure  to  come  and  sit  on  the  precious 
child's  chest  the  moment  you  leave  the  bedside. 
You  worry  yourself  a  good  deal  too  much  about 
that  solitary  chick,  and  you  worry  everybody 
else  too.  Try  and  think  of  your  other  duties, 
and  your  pretty  face  will  not  be  always  puck- 
ered into  wrinkles,  and  there  will  be  cheerful- 
ness in  the  parlor  as  well  as  in  the  nursery. 
Think  of  your  big  baby  a  little.  Dance  him 
about  a  bit;  call  him  pretty  names;  laugh  at 
him  now  and  then.  It  is  only  the  first  baby 
that  takes  up  the  whole  of  a  woman's  time. 
Five  or  six  do  not  require  nearly  so  much 
attention  as  one.  But  before  then  the  mischief 
has  been  done.  A  house  where  there  seems 
no  room  for  him  and  a  wife  too  busy  to  think 
of  him  have  lost  their  hold  on  that  so  unrea- 
sonable husband  of  yours,  and  he  has  learned 
to  look  elsewhere  for  comfort  and  companion- 
ship. 

But  there,  there,  there!  I  shall  get  myself 
the  character  of  a  baby-hater  if  I  talk  any 
more  in  this  strain.  And  Heaven  knows  I  am 
not  one.  Who  could  be,  to  look  into  the  little 
innocent  faces  clustered  in  timid  helplessness 
round  those  great  gates  that  open  down  into 
the  world? 

The  world-^the  small  round  world!  what  a 
vast  mysterious    place    it    must    seem    to   baby 


AN  IDLE  FELLOW  103 

eyes!  What  a  trackless  continent  the  back 
garden  appears!  What  marvelous  explorations 
they  make  in  the  cellar  under  the  stairs!  With 
what  awe  they  gize  down  the  long  street,  won- 
dering, like  us  bigger  babies  when  we  gaze  up 
at  the  stars,  where  it  all  ends! 

And  down  that  longest  street  of  all— that 
long,  dim  street  of  life  that  stretches  out  be- 
fore them — what  grave,  old-fashioned  looks  they 
seem  to  cast!  What  pitiful,  frightened  looks 
sometimes!  I  saw  a  little  mite  sitting  on  a 
doorstep  in  a  Soho  slum  one  night,  and  I  shall 
never  forget  the  look  that  the  gas-lamp  showed 
me  on  its  wizen  face— a  look  of  dull  despair^ 
as  if  from  the  squalid  court  the  vista  of  its 
own  squalid  life  had  risen,  ghost-like,  and 
struck  its  heart  dead  with  horror. 

Poor  little  feet,  just  commencing  the  stony 
journey!  We  old  travelers,  far  down  the  road, 
can  only  pause  to  wave  a  hand  to  you.  You 
come  out  of  the  dark  mist,  and  we,  looking 
back,  see  you,  so  tiny  in  the  distance,  standing 
on  the  brow  of  the  hill,  your  arms  stretched 
out  toward  us.  God  speed  you!  We  would 
stay  and  take  your  little  hands  in  ours,  but 
the  murmur  of  the  great  sea  is  in  our  ears 
and  we  may  not  linger.  We  must  hasten  down, 
for  the  shadowy  ships  are  waiting  to  spread 
their  sable  sails. 

ON  EATING  AND  DRINKING. 

I  always  was  fond  of  eating  and  drinking, 
even  as  a  child — especially  eating,  in  those  early 
days.  I  had  an  appetite  then,  also  a  digestion. 
I  remember  a  dull-eyed,  livid-complexioned  gen- 


104  IDLE  THOUGHTS  OF 

tleman  coming  to  dine  at  our  house  once.  He 
watched  me  eating  for  about  five  minutes,  quite 
fascinated  seemingly,  and  then  he  turned  to 
my  father  with — 

"Does  your  boy  ever  suffer  from  dyspepsia?" 

"I  never  heard  him  complain  of  anything  of 
that  kind,"  replied  my  father.  "Do  you  ever 
suffer  from  dyspepsia,  Collywobbles?"  (They 
called  me  Collywobbles,  but  it  was  not  my  real 
name.) 

"No,  pa,"  I  answered.  After  which  I  added: 
"What  is  dyspepsia,  pa?" 

My  livid-complexioned  friend  regarded  me 
with  a  look  of  mingled  amazement  and  envy. 
Then  in  a  tone  of  infinite  pity  he  slowly  said: 

"You  will  know — some  day." 

My  poor,  dear  mother  used  to  say  she  liked 
to  see  me  eat,  and  it  has  always  been  a  pleasant 
reflection  to  me  since  that  I  must  have  given 
her  much  gratification  in  that  direction.  A 
growing,  healthy  lad,  taking  plenty  of  exercise 
and  careful  to  restrain  himself  from  indulging 
in  too  much  study,  can  generally  satisfy  the 
most  exacting  expectations  as  regards  his  feed- 
ing powers. 

It  is  amusing  to  see  boys  eat  when  you  have 
not  got  to  pay  for  it.  Their  idea  of  a  square 
meal  is  a  pound  and  a  half  of  roast  beef  with 
five  or  six  good-sized  potatoes  (soapy  ones  pre- 
ferred as  being  more  substantial),  plenty  of 
greens,  and  four  thick  slices  of  Yorkshire  pud- 
ding, followed  by  a  couple  of  currant  dump- 
lings, a  few  green  apples,  a  pen'orth  of  nuts, 
half  a  dozen  jumbles,  and  a  bottle  of  ginger- 
beer.     After  that  they  play  at  horses. 


AN  IDLE   FELLOW  105 

How  they  must  despise  us  men,  who  require 
to  sit  quiet  for  a  couple  of  hours  after  dining 
off  a  spoonful  of  clear  soup  and  the  wing  of  a 
chicken! 

But  the  boys  have  not  all  the  advantages  on 
their  side.  A  boy  never  enjoys  the  luxury  of 
being  satisfied.  A  boy  never  feels  full.  He  can 
never  stretch  out  his  legs,  put  his  hands  behind 
his  head,  and,  closing  his  eyes,  sink  into  the 
ethereal  blissfulness  that  encompasses  the  well- 
dined  man.  A  dinner  makes  no  difference  what- 
ever to  a  boy.  To  a  man  it  is  as  a  good  fairy's 
potion,  and  after  it  the  world  appears  a  brighter 
and  a  better  place.  A  man  who  has  dined  sat- 
isfactorily experiences  a  yearning  love  toward 
all  his  fellow-creatures.  He  strokes  the  cat 
quite  gently  and  calls  it  "poor  pussy,"  in  tones 
full  of  the  tenderest  emotion.  He  sympathizes 
with  the  members  of  the  German  band  outside 
and  wonders  if  they  are  cold;  and  for  the 
moment  he  does  not  even  hate  his  wife's  rela- 
tions. 

A  good  dinner  brings  out  all  the  softer  side 
of  a  man.  Under  its  genial  influence  the 
gloomy  and  morose  become  jovial  and  chatty. 
Sour,  starchy  individuals,  who  all  the  rest  of 
the  day  go  about  looking  as  if  they  lived  on 
vinegar  and  Epsom  salts,  break  out  into 
wreathed  smiles  after  dinner,  and  exhibit  a 
tendency  to  pat  small  children  on  the  head  and 
to  talk  to  them — vaguely — about  sixpences.  Seri- 
ous men  thaw  and  become  mildly  cheerful, 
and  snobbish  young  men  of  the  heavy-mustache 
type  forget  to  make  themselves  objectionable. 

I  always  feel  sentimental  myself  after  dinner. 


106  IDLE  THOUGHTS  OF 

It  is  the  only  time  when  I  can  properly  ap- 
preciate love-stories.  Then,  when  the  hero 
clasps  "her"  to  his  heart  in  one  last  wild  em- 
brace and  stifles  a  sob,  I  feel  as  sad  as  though 
I  had  dealt  at  whist  and  turned  up  only  a 
deuce;  and  when  the  heroine  dies  in  the  end 
I  weep.  If  I  read  the  same  tale  early  in  tho_ 
morning  I  should  sneer  at  it.  Digestion,  or' 
rather  indigestion,  has  a  marvelous  effect  upon 
the  heart.  If  I  want  to  write  anything  very 
pathetic — I  mean,  if  I  v/ant  to  try  to  write 
anything  very  pathetic — I  eat  a  large  plateful 
of  hot  buttered  muffins  about  an  hour  before- 
hand, and  then  by  the  time  I  sit  down  to  my 
v/ork  a  feeling  of  unutterable  melancholy  has 
come  over  me.  I  picture  heartbroken  lovers 
parting  forever  at  lonely  wayside  stiles,  while 
the  sad  twilight  deepens  arornd  them,  and  only 
the  tinkling  of  a  distant  sheep-bell  breaks  thi 
ccrrow-laden  silence.  Old  men  sit  and  gaze  at 
withered  flowers  till  their  sight  is  dimmed  by 
the  mist  of  tears.  Little  diiinty  maidens  wait 
and  watch  at  open  casements;  but  "he  com.eth 
not,"  and  the  heavy  years  roll  by  and  th? 
sunny  gold  tresses  wear  white  and  thin.  The 
babies  that  they  dandled  have  become  grown 
men  and  women  with  podsy  torments  of  their 
own,  and  the  playmates  that  they  laughed 
v/ith  are  lying  very  silent  under  the  wavin^^ 
n:rass.  But  still  they  wait  and  watch,  till  th 
dark  shadows  of  the  unknown  night  steal  \v 
rnd  gather  round  them  and  the  world  with  itT 
childish  troubles  fades  from  their  aching  eyes. 
I  see  pale  corpses  tossed  on  white-foamed 
"aves,  and  death-beds  stained  with  bitter  tears. 


I 


AN  IDLE   FELLOW  107 


and  graves  in  trackless  deserts.  I  hear  the 
wild  wailing  of  women,  the  low  moaning  of 
little  children,  the  dry  sobbing  of  strong  men. 
It's  all  the  muffins.  I  could  not  conjure  up  one 
melancholy  fancy  upon  a  mutton  chop  and  a 
glass  of  champagne. 

A  full  stomach  is  a  great  aid  to  poetry,  and 
indeed  no  sentiment  of  any  kind  can  stand 
upon  an  empty  one.  We  have  not  time  or  in- 
clination to  indulge  in  fanciful  troubles  until 
we  have  got  rid  of  our  real  misfortunes.  We 
do  not  sigh  over  dead  dicky-birds  with  the 
bailiff  in  the  house,  and  when  we  do  not  know 
where  on  earth  to  get  our  next  shilling  from, 
we  do  not  worry  as  to  whether  our  mistress' 
smiles  are  cold,  or  hot,  or  lukewarm,  or  any- 
thing else  about  them. 

Foolish  people — when  I  say  "foolish  people" 
in  this  contemptuous  way  I  mean  people  who 
entertain  different  opinions  to  mine.  If  there 
is  one  person  I  do  despise  more  than  another, 
it  is  the  man  who  does  not  think  exactly  the 
same  on  all  topics  as  I  do — foolish  people,  I 
say,  then,  who  have  never  experienced  much 
of  either,  will  tell  you  that  mental  distress  ir 
far  more  agonizing  than  bodily.  Romantic  and 
touching  theory!  so  comforting  to  the  love-sick 
young  sprig  who  looks  down  patronizingly  at 
some  poor  devil  with  a  white  starved  face  and 
thinks  to  himself,  "Ah,  how  happy  you  are 
compared  v/lth  me!" — so  soothing  to  fat  old 
gentlemen  who  cackle  about  the  superiority  of 
poverty  over  riches.  But  it  is  all  nonsense — 
all  cant.  An  aching  head  soon  makes  one  for- 
get  an    aching    heart.     A   broken    finger    will 


108  IDLE  THOUGHTS  OF 

drive  away  all  recollections  of  an  empty  chair. 
And  when  a  man  feels  really  hungry  he  does 
not  feel  anything  else. 

We  sleek,  well-fed  folk  can  hardly  realize 
what  feeling  hungry  is  like.  We  know  what  it 
is  to  have  no  appetite  and  not  to  care  for  the 
dainty  victuals  placed  before  us,  but  we  do  not 
understand  what  it  means  to  sicken  for  food — 
to  die  for  bread  while  others  waste  it — to  gaze 
with  famished  eyes  upon  coarse  fare  steaming 
behind  dingy  windows,  longing  for  a  pen'orth 
of  pea  pudding  and  not  having  the  penny  to 
buy  it — to  feel  that  a  crust  would  be  delicious 
and  that  a  bone  would  be  a  banquet. 

Hunger  is  a  luxury  to  us,  a  piquant,  flavor- 
giving  sauce.  It  is  well  worth  while  to  get 
hungry  and  thirsty  merely  to  discover  how 
much  gratification  can  be  obtained  from  eating 
and  drinking.  If  you  wish  to  thoroughly  en- 
joy your  dinner,  take  a  thirty-mile  country  walk 
after  breakfast  and  don't  touch  anything  till 
you  get  back.  How  your  eyes  will  glisten  at 
sight  of  the  white  table-cloth  and  steaming 
dishes  then!  With  what  a  sigh  of  content  you 
will  put  down  the  empty  beer  tankard  and 
take  up  your  knife  and  fork!  And  how  com- 
fortable you  feel  afterward  as  you  push  back 
your  chair,  light  a  cigar,  and  beam  round  upon 
everybody. 

Make  sure,  however,  when  adopting  this  plan, 
that  the  good  dinner  is  really  to  be  had  at  the 
end,  or  the  disappointment  is  trying,  I  re- 
member once  a  friend  and  I — dear  old  Joe,  it 
was.  Ah!  how  we  lose  one  another  in  life's 
mist.     It  must  be  eight  years  since  I  last  saw 


AN   IDLE  FELLOW  109 

Joseph  Taboys.  How  pleasant  it  would  be  to 
meet  his  jovial  face  again,  to  clasp  his  strong 
hand,  and  to  hear  his  cheery  laugh  once  more! 
He  owes  me  14  shillings,  too.  Well,  we  were 
on  a  holiday  together,  and  one  morning  we  had 
breakfast  early  and  started  for  a  tremendous 
long  walk.  We  had  ordered  a  duck  for  dinner 
over  night.  We  said,  "Get  a  big  one,  because 
we  shall  come  home  awfully  hungry;"  and  as 
we  w^ere  going  out  our  landlady  came  up  in 
great  spirits.  She  said,  "I  have  got  you  gentle- 
men a  duck,  if  you  like.  If  you  get  through 
that  you'll  do  well;"  and  she  held  up  a  bird 
about  the  size  of  a  door-mat.  We  chuckled 
at  the  sight  and  said  we  would  try.  We  said 
it  with  self-conscious  pride,  like  men  who  know 
their  own  power.     Then  we  started. 

We  lost  our  way,  of  course.  I  always  do  in 
the  country,  and  it  does  make  me  so  wild,  be- 
cause it  is  no  use  asking  direction  of  any  of 
the  people  you  meet.  One  might  as  well  in- 
quire of  a  lodging-house  slavey  the  way  to 
make  beds  as  expect  a  country  bumpkin  to 
know  the  road  to  the  next  village.  You  have 
to  shout  the  question  about  three  times  before 
the  sound  of  your  voice  penetrates  his  skull. 
At  the  third  time  he  slowly  raises  his  head  and 
stares  blankly  at  you.  You  yell  it  at  him  then 
for  a  fourth  time,  and  he  repeats  it  after  you. 
He  ponders  while  you  count  a  couple  of  hun- 
dred, after  which,  speaking  at  the  rate  of  three 
words   a   minute,   he  fancies   you   "couldn't  do 

better    than "      Here    he    catches    sight    of 

another  idiot  coming  down  the  road  and  bawls 
out  to  him  the  particular?    requesting  hii^  a-^- 


110  IDLE  THOUGHTS  OF 

vice.  The  two  then  argue  the  case  for  a  quarter 
of  an  hour  or  so,  and  finally  agree  that  yon 
had  better  go  straight  down  the  lane,  ro-n'^i  to 
the  right  and  cross  by  the  third  stile,  and  keep 
to  the  .left  by  old  Jimmy  Milcher's  ccw-.hc 
nd  across  the  seven-acre  field,  and  through 
the  gate  by  Squire  Grubbin*s  hay-stack,  keep- 
ing the  bridle  path  for  awhile  till  you  come 
opposite  the  hill  where  the  win'ilmill  used  t'^ 
be — but  it's  gone  now — and  round  to  the  right, 
leaving  Stigsin's  plantation  behind  you;  and 
you  say  "Thank  you'  'and  go  away  with  a  split- 
ting headache,  but  without  the  faintest  notion 
of  your  way,  the  only  clear  idea  you  have  on 
the  subject  bein^  that  somewhere  or  other 
"^here  is  a  stile  which  has  to  be  got  over;  and 
at  the  next  turn  you  come  ur-on  four  stiles,  all 
leading  in  different  directions! 

We  had  undergone  this  ordeal  tv/o  or  three 
times.  We  had  tramped  over  fields.  We  had 
waded  through  brooks  and  scrambled  over 
hedges  and  walls.  We  had  had  a  row  as  to 
whose  fault  it  was  that  we  had  first  lost  our 
way.  We  had  got  thoroughly  disagreeable,  foot- 
sore, and  weary.  But  throughout  it  ail  the  hop 
of  that  duck  kept  us  up.  A  fairy-like  vision, 
it  floated  before  our  tired  eyes  and  drew  us 
onward.  The  thought  of  it  was  as  a  trumpet- 
call  to  the  fainting.  We  talked  of  it  and  cheered 
each  other  with  our  recollections  of  it.  "Come 
along,"  we  said;   "the  duck  will  be  spoiled." 

We  felt  a  strong  temptation,  at  one  point,  to 
turn  into  a  village  inn  as  we  passed  and  have 
a  cheese  and  a  few  loaves  between  us,  but  we 
heroically  restrained  ourselves;   we  should  en- 


AN  IDLE  FELLOW  111 

joy  the  duck  all  the  better  for  being  famished. 

We  fancied  we  smelled  it  when  we  got  into 
the  town  and  did  the  last  quarter  of  a  mile 
in  three  minutes.  We  rushed  upstairs,  and 
washed  ourselves,  and  change:!  our  clothes,  and 
came  down,  and  pulled  our  chairs  up  to  the 
table,  and  sat  and  rubbed  our  hands  while  the 
landlady  removed  the  covers,  when  I  seized  the 
knil'e  and  fork  and  started  to  carve. 

It  seemed  to  want  a  lot  of  carving.  I  struggled 
with  it  for  about  five  minutes  without  making 
the  slightest  impression,  and  then  Joe,  who  had 
been  eating  potatoes,  wanted  to  know  if  it 
wouldn't  be  better  for  some  one  to  do  the  job 
that  understood  carving.  I  took  no  notice  of  his 
foolish  remark,  but  attacked  the  bird  again;  and 
so  vigorously  this  time  that  the  animal  left 
the  dish  and  took  refuge  in  the  fender. 

We  soon  had  it  out  of  that,  though,  and  I 
was  prepared  to  make  another  effort.  But  Joe 
was  getting  unpleasant.  He  said  that  if  he 
had  thought  we  were  to  have  a  game  of  blind 
hockey  with  the  dinner  he  would  have  got  a  bit 
of  bread  and  cheese  outside. 

I  was  too  exhausted  to  argue.  I  laid  down 
the  knife  and  fork  with  dignity  and  took  a  side 
seat  and  Joe  went  for  the  wretched  creature, 
He  worked  away  in  silence  for  awhile,  and 
then  he  muttered  "Damn  the  duck"  and  took 
his  coat  off. 

We  did  break  the  thing  up  at  length  with  the 
aid  of  a  chisel,  but  it  was  perfectly  impossible 
to  eat  it,  and  we  had  to  make  a  dinner  off  the 
vegetables  and  an  apple  tart.    We  tried  a  mouth- 


112  IDLE   THOUGHTS  OF 

ful  of  the  duck,  but  it  was  like  eating  India- 
rubber. 

It  was  a  wicked  sin  to  kill  that  drake.  But 
there!  there's  no  respect  for  old  institutions 
in  this  country. 

I  started  this  paper  with  the  idea  of  writing 
about  eating  and  drinking,  but  I  seem  to  have 
confined  my  remarks  entirely  to  eating  as  yet. 
Well,  you  see,  drinking  is  one  of  those  subjects 
with  which  it  is  inadvisable  to  appear  too  well 
acquainted.  The  days  are  gone  by  when  it  was 
considered  manly  to  go  to  bed  intoxicated  every 
night,  and  a  clear  head  and  a  firm  hand  no 
longer  draw  down  upon  their  owner  the  re- 
proach of  effeminacy.  On  the  contrary,  in  these 
sadly  degenerate  days  an  evil-smelling  breath, 
a  blotchy  face,  a  reeling  gait,  and  a  husky  voice 
are  regarded  as  the  hall  marks  of  the  cad  rather 
than  of  the  gentleman. 

Even  nowadays,  though,  the  thirstiness  of 
mankind  is  something  supernatural.  We  are 
forever  drinking  on  one  excuse  or  another.  A 
man  never  feels  comfortable  unless  he  has  a 
glass  before  him.  We  drink  before  meals,  and 
with  meals,  and  after  meals.  We  drink  when 
we  meet  a  friend,  also  when  we  part  from  a 
friend.  We  drink  when  we  are  talking,  when 
we  are  reading,  and  when  we  are  thinking. 
We  drink  one  another's  healths  and  spoil  our 
own.  We  drink  the  queen,  and  the  army,  and 
the  ladies,  and  everybody  else  that  is  drink- 
able; and  I  believe  if  the  supply  ran  short  we 
should   drink   our  mothers-in-law. 

By  the  way,  we  never  eat  anybody's  health, 
always  drink  it.    Why  should  we  not  stand  up 


AN  IDLE  FELLOW  113 

now  and  then  and  eat  a  tart  to  somebody's 
success? 

To  me,  I  confess  the  constant  necessity  of 
drinking  under  which  the  majority  of  men 
labor  is  quite  unaccountable.  I  can  understand 
people  drinking  to  drown  care  or  to  drive  away 
maddening  thoughts  well  enough,  I  can  under- 
stand the  ignorant  masses  loving  to  soak  them- 
selves in  drink — oh,  yes,  it's  very  shocking  that 
they  should,  of  course — very  shocking  to  us 
who  live  in  cozy  homes,  with  all  the  graces 
and  pleasures  of  life  around  us,  that  the  dwell- 
ers in  damp  cellars  and  windy  attics  should 
creep  from  their  dens  of  misery  into  the  warmth 
and  glare  of  the  public-house  bar,  and  seek  to 
float  for  a  brief  space  away  from  their  dull 
world  upon  a  Lethe  stream  of  gin. 

But  think,  before  you  hold  up  your  hands  in 
horror  at  their  ill-living,  what  "life"  for  these 
wretched  creatures  really  means.  Picture  the 
squalid  misery  of  their  brutish  existence, 
dragged  on  from  year  to  year  in  the  narrow, 
noisome  room  where,  huddled  like  vermin  in 
sewers,  they  welter,  and  sicken,  and  sleep; 
where  dirt-grimed  children  scream  and  fight 
and  sluttish,  shrill-voiced  women  cuff,  and 
curse,  and  nag;  where  the  street  outside  teems 
with  roaring  filth  and  the  house  around  is  a 
bedlam  of  riot  and  stench. 

Think  what  a  sapless  stick  this  fair  flower 
of  life  must  be  to  them,  devoid  of  mind  and 
soul.  The  horse  in  his  stall  scents  the  sweet 
hay  and  munches  the  ripe  corn  contentedly. 
The  watch-dog  in  his  kennel  blinks  at  the 
grateful  sun,  dreams  of  a  glorious  chase  over 


114  IDLE  THOUGHTS  OF 

the  dewy  fields,  and  wakes  with  a  yelp  of  glad- 
ness to  greet  a  caressing  hand.  But  the  clod- 
like life  of  these  human  logs  never  knows  one 
ray  of  light.  From  the  hour  when  they  crawl 
from  their  comfortless  bed  to  the  hour  when 
they  lounge  back  into  it  again  they  never  live 
ona  moment  of  real  life.  Recreation,  amuse- 
ment, companionship,  they  know  not  the  mean- 
ing of.  Joy,  sorrow,  laughter,  tears,  love,  friend- 
ship, longing,  despair,  are  idle  words  to  them. 
From  the  day  when  their  baby  eyes  first  look 
out  upon  their  sordid  world  to  the  day  when, 
with  an  oath,  they  close  them  forever  and 
their  bones  are  shoveled  out  of  sight,  they  never 
warm  to  one  touch  of  human  sympathy,  never 
thrill  to  a  single  thought,  never  start  to  a 
single  hope.  In  the  name  of  the  God  of  mercy, 
let  them  pour  the  maddening  liquor  down  their 
throats  and  feel  for  ona  brief  moment  that  they 
live! 

Ah!  we  may  talk  sentiment  as  much  as  we 
like,  but  the  stomach  is  the  real  seat  of  happi- 
ness in  this  world.  The  kitchen  is  the  chief 
temple  wherein  we  worship,  its  roaring  fire  is 
our  vestal  flame,  and  the  cook  is  our  great 
high-priest.  He  is  a  mighty  magician  and  a 
kindly  one.  He  soothes  away  all  sorrow  and 
care.  He  drives  forth  all  enmity,  gladdens 
all  love.  Our  God  is  great  and  the  cook  is  his 
prophet.  Let  us  eat,  drink,  and  be  merry. 
ON  FURNISHED  APARTMENTS. 

"Oh,  you  have  some  rooms  to  let." 

"Mother!" 

"Well,  what  is  it?" 

"  'Ere's  a  gentleman  about  the  rooms." 


AN  IDLE   FELLOW  115 

"Ask  'im  in.    I'll  l^e  up  in  a  minute." 

"Will  yer  step  inside,  sir?  Mother'll  be  up  in 
a  minute." 

So  you  step  inside,  and  after  a  minute  "moth- 
er" comes  slowly  up  the  kitchen  stairs,  unty- 
ing her  apron  as  she  comes  and  calling  down 
instructions  to  some  one  below  about  the  po- 
tatoes. 

"Good-morning,  sir,"  says  "mother,"  with  a 
washe-T-out  smile.  "Will  you  step  this  way, 
please?" 

"Oh,  it's  hardly  worth  while  my  coming  up," 
you  say.  "What  sort  of  rooms  are  they,  and 
how  much  ?" 

"Well,"  says  tTie  landlady,  "if  you'll  step  up- 
stairs I'll  show  them  to  you." 

So  with  a  protesting  murmur,  meant  to  im- 
ply th-^t  ?ny  wpste  of  time  complained  of  here- 
pff-r  Tn"st  not  be  l-'id  to  your  charge,  you  fol- 
low "mother"  upstairs. 

A!:  the  first  l-^nding  you  run  up  against  a 
pail  and  a  broom,  whereupon  "mother"  expati- 
ates upon  the  unreliability  of  servant-girls,  and 
bavis  over  the  b:iluster3  for  Sarah  to  come  and 
t:<ke  them  away  at  once.  When  you  get  out- 
ni'le  the  rooms  she  pauses,  with  her  hand  upon 
the  door,  to  explain  to  you  that  they  are  rather 
untidy  Just  at  present,  as  the  last  lodger  left 
only  yesterday;  and  she  also  adds  that  this 
is  their  cleaning-day — it  always  is.  With  this 
understanding  you  enter,  and  both  stand  sol- 
emnly feasting  your  v?yes  upon  the  scene  before 
you.  The  rooms  cannot  be  said  to  appear  in- 
viting. Even  "mother's"  face  betrays  no  ad- 
miration.    Untenanted  "furnished  apartments" 


116  IDLE   THOUGHTS  OF 

viewed  in  the  morning  sunlight  do  not  inspire 
cheery  sensations.  There  is  a  lifeless  air  about 
them.  It  is  a  very  different  thing  when  you 
have  settled  down  and  are  living  in  them.  With 
your  old  familiar  household  goods  to  greet  your 
gaze  whenever  you  glance  up,  and  all  your  lit- 
tle knick-knacks  spread  around  you — with  the 
photos  of  all  the  girls  that  you  have  loved  and 
lost  ranged  upon  the  mantel-piece,  and  half  a 
dozen  disreputable-looking  pipes  scattered  about 
in  painfully  prominent  positions — with  one  car- 
pet slipper  peeping  from  beneath  the  coal-box 
and  the  other  perched  on  the  top  of  the  piano — 
with  the  well-known  pictures  to  hide  the  dingy 
walls,  and  these  dear  old  friends,  your  books, 
higgledy-piggledy  all  over  the  place — with  the 
bits  of  old  blue  china  that  your  mother  prized, 
and  the  screen  she  worked  in  those  far  by-gone 
days,  when  the  sweet  old  face  was  laughing  and 
young,  and  the  white  soft  hair  tumbled  in  gold- 
brown  curls  from  under  the  coal-scuttle  bon- 
net  

Ah,  old  screen,  what  a  gorgeous  personage 
you  must  have  been  in  your  young  days,  when 
the  tulips  and  roses  and  lilies  (all  growing 
from  one  stem)  were  fresh  in  their  glistening 
sheen!  Many  a  summer  and  winter  have  come 
and  gone  since  then,  my  friend,  and  you  have 
played  with  the  dancing  firelight  until  you 
have  grown  sad  and  gray.  Your  brilliant  col- 
ors are  fast  fading  now,  and  the  envious  moths 
have  gnawed  your  silken  threads.  You  are 
withering  away  like  the  dead  hands  that  w^ove 
you.  Do  you  ever  think  of  those  dead  hands? 
You  seem  so  grave  and  thoughtful  sometimes 


AN  IDLE   FELLOW  117 

that  I  almost  think  you  do.  Come,  you  and  I 
and  the  deep-glowing  embers,  let  us  talk  to- 
gether. Tell  me  in  your  silent  language  what 
you  remember  of  those  young  days,  when  you 
lay  on  -my  little  mother's  lap  and  her  girlish 
fingers  played  with  your  rainbow  tresses.  Was 
there  never  a  lad  near  sometimes — never  a  lad 
who  would  seize  one  of  those  little  hands  to 
smot'ier  it  with  kisses,  and  who  would  persist 
in  hvjlding  it,  thereby  sadly  interfering  with 
the  progress  of  your  making?  Was  not  your 
frail  existence  often  put  in  jeopardy  by  this 
same  clumsy,  headstrong  lad,  who  would  toss 
you  disrespectfully  aside  that  he — not  satisfied 
with  one — might  hold  both  hands  and  gaze 
up  into  the  loved  eyes?  I  can  see  that  lad  now 
through  the  haze  of  the  flickering  twilight.  He 
is  an  eager,  bright-eyed  boy,  with  pinching, 
dandy  shoes  and  tight-fitting  smalls,  snowy 
shirt  frill  and  stock,  and — oh!  such  curly  hair. 
A  wild,  light-hearted  boy!  Can  he  be  the  great, 
grave  gentleman  upon  v/hose  stick  I  used  to 
ride  cross-legged,  the  care-worn  man  into  whose 
thoughtful  face  I  used  to  gaze  with  childish  rev- 
erence and  whom  I  used  to  call  "father?"  You 
say  "yes,"  old  screen;  but  are  you  quite  sure? 
It  is  a  serious  charge  you  arp  bringing.  Can  it 
be  possible?  Did  he  have  to  kneel  down  in 
those  wonderful  smalls  and  pick  you  up  and 
re?rranp:e  you  before  he  was  forgiven  and  h-s 
curly  head  smoothed  by  his  mother's  little 
hand?  Ah!  old  screen,  and  did  the  lads  and 
the  lassies  go  making  love  fifty  years  ago  just 
as  they  do  now?  Are  men  and  women  so  un- 
changed?    Did  little  maidens'  hearts  beat  the 


118  IDLE  THOUGHTS  OP 

same  under  pearl-embroidered  bodices  as  they 
do  under  Mother  Hubbard  cloaks?  Have  steel 
casques  and  chimneypot  hats  made  no  differ- 
ence  to  the  brains  that  work  beneath  them? 
Oh,  Time!  great  Chronos!  and  is  this  your 
power?  Have  you  dried  up  seas  and  leveled 
mountains  and  left  the  tiny  human  heart- 
strings to  defy  you?  Ah,  yes!  they  were  spun 
by  a  Mightier  than  thou,  and  they  stretch  be- 
yond your  narrow  ken,  for  their  ends  are  made 
fast  in  eternity.  Ay,  you  may  mow  down  the 
leaves  and  the  blossoms,  but  the  roots  of  life 
He  too  deep  for  your  sickle  to  sever.  You  re- 
fashion Nature's  garments,  but  you  cannot  vary 
by  a  jot  the  throbbins:s  of  her  pulse.  The  world 
rolls  round  obedient  to  your  laws,  but  the  heart 
of  man  is  not  of  your  kingdom,  for  in  its  birth- 
place "a  thousand  years  are  but  as  yesterday." 

I  am  getting  away,  though,  I  fear,  from  my 
"furnished  apartments,"  and  I  hardly  know  how 
to  get  back.  But  I  have  some  excuse  for  my 
meanderings  this  time.  It  is  a  piece  of  old 
furniture  that  has  led  me  astray,  and  fancies 
gather,  somehow,  round  old  furniture,  like  moss 
around  old  stones.  One's  chairs  and  tables  get 
to  be  almost  part  of  one's  life  and  to  seem  like 
quiet  friends.  What  strange  tales  the  wooden- 
headed  old  fellows  could  tell  did  they  but  choose 
to  speak!  At  what  unsuspected  comedies  and 
tragedies  have  they  not  assisted!  What  bitter 
tears  have  been  sobbed  into  that  old  sofa  cush- 
ion! What  passionate  whisperings  the  settee 
must  have  overheard! 

New  furniture  has  no  charms  for  me  com- 
pared with  old.     It  Is  the  old  things  that  we 


AN  IDLE   FELLOW  119 

love — the  old  faces,  the  old  books,  the  old  Jokes. 
New  furniture  can  make  a  palace,  but  it  takes 
old  furniture  to  make  a  home.  Not  merely  old 
in  itself—lodging-house  furniture  generally  is 
that — but  it  must  be  old  to  U5>i0ld  in  associa- 
tions and  recollections.  The  furniture  of  fur- 
nished apartments,  however  ancient  it  may  be 
in  reality,  is  new  to  our  eyes,  and  we  feel  as 
though  we  could  never  get  on  with  it.  As,  too, 
in  the  case  of  all  fresh  acquaintances,  whether 
wooden  or  humr.n  (and  there  is  very  little  dif- 
ference between  the  two  species  sometimes), 
everything  impresses  you  with  its  worst  as- 
pect. The  knobby  wood-work  and  shiny  horse- 
hair covering  of  the  easy-chair  suggest  any« 
thing  but  ease.  The  mirror  is  smoky.  The  cur- 
tains want  washing.  The  carpet  is  frayed.  The 
table  looks  as  if  it  would  go  over  the  instant 
rnything  was  rested  on  it.  The  grate  is  cheer- 
less, the  wall-paper  hideous.  The  ceiling  ap» 
pears  to  have  had  coffee  spilt  all  over  it,  and 
the  ornaments— well,  they  are  worse  than  the 
v/all-p-iper. 

There  must  surely  be  some  special  and  se- 
^■T3t  manufactory  for  the  production  of  lodging- 
house  ornaments.  Precisely  the  same  articles 
-^re  to  be  found  at  every  lodging-house  all  over 
^he  kingdom,  and  they  are  never  seen  any- 
"here  else.  There  are  the  two— what  do  you 
--11  them?  they  stand  one  at  each  end  of  the 
mantel-piece,  where  they  are  never  safe,  and 
they  are  hung  round  with  long  triangular  slips 
of  glass  that  clank  against  one  another  and 
make  you  nervous.  In  the  commoner  class  of 
rooms  these  works  of  art  are  supplemented  by 


120  IDLE  THOUGHTS  OF 

a  couple  of  pieces  of  china  which  might  each 
be  meant  to  represent  a  cow  sitting  upon  its 
hind  legs,  or  a  model  of  the  temple  of  Diana 
at  Ephesus,  or  a  dog,  or  anything  else  you  like 
to  fancy.  Som.?>;here  about  the  room  you  come 
across  a  bilious-looking  object,  which  at  first 
you  take  to  be  a  lump  of  dough  left  about  by 
one  of  the  children,  but  which  on  scrutiny 
seems  to  resemble  an  underdone  cupid.  This 
thing  the  landlady  calls  a  statue.  Then  there 
is  a  "sampler"  worked  by  some  idiot  related 
to  the  family,  a  picture  of  the  "Huguenots," 
two  or  three  Scripture  texts,  and  a  highly 
framed  and  glazed  certificate  to  the  effect  that 
the  father  has  been  vaccinated,  or  is  an  Odd 
Fellow,  or  something  of  that  sort. 

You  examine  these  various  attractions  and 
then  dismally  ask  what  the  rent  Is. 

"That's  rather  a  good  deal,"  you  say  on  hear- 
ing the  figure. 

"Well,  to  tell  you  the  truth,"  answers  the 
landlady  with  a  sudden  burst  of  candor,  "I've 
always  had"  (mentioning  a  sum  a  good  deal  in 
excess  of  the  first-named  amount),  "and  before 
that  I  used  to  have"  (a  still  higher  figure). 

What  the  rent  of  apartments  must  have  been 
twenty  years  ago  makes  one  shudder  to  think 
of.  Every  landlady  makes  you  feel  thoroughly 
ashamed  of  yourself  by  informing  you,  when- 
ever the  subject  crops  up,  that  she  used  to  get 
twice  as  much  for  her  rooms  as  you  are  pay- 
ing. Young  men  lodgers  of  the  last  generation 
must  have  been  of  a  wealthier  class  than  they 
are  now,  or  they  must  have  ruined  themselves. 
I  should  have  had  to  live  in  an  attic. 


AN  IDLE  FELLOW  121 

Curious,  that  in  lodgings  the  rule  of  life  i^ 
reversed.  The  higher  you  get  up  in  tlie  world 
the  lower  you  come  down  in  your  lodgings. 
On  the  lodging-house  ladder  the  poor  man  is  at 
the  top,  the  rich  man  underneath.  You  start  in 
the  attic  and  work  your  way  down  to  the  first 
floor. 

A  good  many  great  men  have  lived  in  attics 
and  some  have  died  there.  Attics,  says  the 
dictionary,  are  "places  where  lumber  is  stored," 
and  the  world  has  used  them  to  store  a  good 
deal  of  its  lumber  in  at  one  time  or  another.  Its 
preachers  and  painters  and  poeis,  its  deep- 
browed  men  who  will  find  out  things,  its  fire- 
eyed  men  who  will  tell  truths  that  no  one  wants 
to  hear — these  are  the  lumber  that  the  world 
hides  away  in  its  attics.  Haydn  grew  up  in 
an  attic  and  Chatterton  starved  in  one.  Addi- 
son and  Goldsmith  v/rote  in  garrets.  Faraday 
and  De  Quineey  knew  them  well.  Dr.  Johnson 
camped  cheerfully  in  them,  sleeping  soundly — 
too  soundly  sometimes — upon  their  trundle- 
beds,  like  the  sturdy  old  soldier  of  fortune  that 
he  was,  inured  to  hiirclsbip  and  all  careless  of 
himself.  Dickens  spent  bis  youth  among  them, 
Morlanl  his  old  age — alas!  a  drunken,  prema- 
ture old  age.  Hans  Andersen,  the  fairy  king, 
dreamed  his  sweet  fancies  beneath  their  slop- 
ing roofs.  Poor,  wayward-hearted  Collins 
leaned  his  head  upon  their  crazy  tables;  prig- 
gish Benjamin  Franklin;  Savage,  the  wrong- 
headed,  much  troubled  when  he  could  afford 
vny  softer  bed  than  a  doorstep;  young  Bloom- 
field,  "Bobby"  Burns,  Hogarth,  Watts  the  en- 
gineer— the    roll    is    endless.      Ever    since    the 


122  IDLE   THOUGHTS  OF 

habitations  of  men  were  reared  two  stories  high 
has  the  garret  been  the  nursery  of  genius. 

No  one  who  honors  the  aristocracy  of  mind 
can  feel  ashamed  of  acquaintanceship  with 
them.  Their  damp-stained  walls  are  sacred 
to  the  memory  of  noble  names.  If  all  the  wis- 
dom of  the  world  and  all  its  art — all  the  spoils 
that  it  has  won  from  nature,  all  the  fire  that 
it  has  snatched  from  heaven — were  gathered 
together  and  divided  into  heaps,  and  we  could 
point  and  say,  for  instance,  these  mighty  truths 
were  flashed  forth  in  the  brilliant  salon  amid 
the  ripple  of  light  laughter  and  the  sparkle  of 
bright  eyes;  and  this  deep  knowledge  was  dug 
up  in  the  quiet  study,  where  the  bust  of  Pallas 
looks  serenely  down  on  the  leather-scented 
shelves;  and  this  heap  belongs  to  the  crowded 
street;  and  that  to  the  daisied  field—the  heap 
that  would  tovN^er  up  high  above  the  rest  as  a 
mountain  above  hills  would  be  the  one  at 
which  we  should  look  up  and  say:  this  noblest 
pile  of  all— these  glorious  paintings  and  this 
wondrous  music,  these  trumpet  words,  these 
solemn  thoughts,  these  daring  deeds,  they  were 
forged  and  fashioned  amid  misery  and  pain  in 
the  sordid  squalor  of  the  city  garret.  There, 
from  their  eyries,  while  the  w^orld  heaved  and 
throbbed  below,  the  kings  of  men  sent  forth 
their  eagle  thoughts  to  wing  their  flight 
through  the  ages.  There,  where  the  sunlight 
streaming  through  the  broken  panes  fell  on 
rotting  boards  and  crumbling  walls;  there, 
from  their  lofty  thrones,  those  rag-clothed 
Joves  have  hurled  their  thunderbolts  and 
shaken,  before  now,  the  earth  to  its  founda- 
tions. 


AN  IDLE  FELLOV/  123 

Huddle  them  up  in  your  lumber-rooms,  oh, 
world!  Shut  them  fast  in  and  turn  the  key 
of  poverty  upon  them.  Y/eld  close  the  bars, 
and  let  them  fret  their  hero  lives  away  within 
the  narrow  cage.  Leave  them  there  to  starve, 
and  rot,  and  die.  Laugh  at  the  frenzied  beat- 
ings of  their  hands  against  the  door.  Roll  on- 
ward in  your  dust  and  noise  and  pass  them  by, 
forgotten. 

But  take  care  le?t  they  turn  and  sting  you. 
All  do  not,  like  the  fabled  phoenix,  warble 
sweet  melodies  in  their  agony;  sometimes  they 
spit  venom — venom  you  must  breathe  whether 
you  will  or  no,  for  you  cannot  seal  their 
mouths,  though  you  m.ay  fetter  their  limbs. 
You  can  lock  the  door  upon  them,  but  they 
burst  open  their  shaky  lattices  and  call  out 
over  the  house-tops  so  that  men  cannot  but 
hear.  You  hounded  wild  Rousseau  into  the 
meanest  garret  of  the  Rue  St.  Jacques  and 
jeered  at  his  angry  shrieks.  But  the  thin,  pip- 
ing  tones  swelled  a  hundred  years  later  into 
the  sullen  roar  of  the  French  Revolution,  and 
civilization  to  this  day  is  quivering  to  the 
reverberations  of  his  voice. 

As  for  myself,  however,  I  like  an  attic.  Not 
to  live  in:  as  residences  they  are  inconvenient. 
There  is  too  much  getting  up  and  downstairs 
connected  with  them  to  please  me.  It  puts  one 
unpleasantly  in  mind  of  the  tread-mill.  The 
form  of  the  ceiling  offers  too  many  facilities 
for  bumping  your  head  and  too  few  for  shav- 
ing. And  the  note  of  the  tom-cat  as  he  sings 
to  his  love  in  the  stilly  night  outside   on  the 


124  IDLE  THOUGHTS  OP 

tiles  becomes  positively  distasteful  when  heard 
so   near. 

No,  for  living  in  give  me  a  suit  of  rooms  on 
the  first  floor  of  a  Piccadilly  mansion  (I  wish 
somebody  would!);  but  for  thinking  in  let  me 
have  an  attic  up  ten  flights  of  stairs  in  the 
densest  quarter  of  the  city.  I  have  all  Herr 
Teufelsdrockh's  affection  for  attics.  There  is 
a  sublimity  about  their  loftiness.  I  love  to 
"sit  at  ease  and  look  down  upon  the  wasps' 
nest  beneath";  to  listen  to  the  dull  murmur  of 
the  human  tide  ebbing  and  flowing  ceaselessly 
through  the  narrow  street^  and  lanes  below. 
How  small  men  seem,  how  like  a  swarm  of  ants 
sweltering  in  endless  confusion  on  their  tiny 
hill!  How  petty  seems  the  work  on  which  they 
are  hurrying  and  skurrying!  How  childishly 
they  Jostle  against  one  another  and  turn  to 
snarl  and  scratch!  They  jabber  and  screech 
and  curse,  but  their  puny  voices  do  not  reach 
up  here.  They  fret,  and  fume,  and  rage,  and 
pant,  and  die;  "but  I,  m.ein  Werther,  sit  above 
it  all;   I  am  alone  with  the  stars." 

The  most  extraordinary  attic  I  ever  came 
across  was  one  a  friend  and  I  once  shared 
many  years  ago.  Of  all  eccentrically  planned 
things,  from  Bradshaw  to  the  m^aze  at  Hamp- 
ton Court,  that  room  was  the  most  eccentric. 
The  architect  who  designed  it  must  have  been 
a  genius,  though  I  cannot  help  thinking  that 
his  talents  would  have  been  better  employed  in 
contriving  puzzles  than  in  sh?riing  human 
habitations.  No  figure  in  Euclid  could  give 
any  idea  of  that  apartment.  It  contained  seven 
corners,  two  of  the  walls  sloped  to  a  point,  and 


AN  IDLE  FELLOW  125 

the  window  was  just  over  the  fireplace.  The 
only  possible  position  for  the  bedstead  was 
between  the  door  and  the  cupboard.  To  get 
anything  out  of  the  cupboard  we  had  to  scram- 
ble over  the  bed,  and  a  large  percentage  of  the 
various  commodities  thus  obtained  was  ab- 
sorbed by  the  bedclothes.  Indeed,  so  many 
things  were  spilled  and  dropped  upon  the  bed 
that  toward  night-time  it  had  become  a  sort 
of  small  co-operative  store.  Coal  was  what  it 
always  had  most  in  stock.  We  used  to  keep 
our  coal  in  the  bottom  part  of  the  cupboard, 
and  when  any  was  wanted  we  had  to  climb 
over  the  bed,  fill  a  shovelful,  and  then  crawl 
back.  It  was  an  exciting  moment  when  we 
reached  the  middle  of  the  bed.  We  would  hold 
our  breath,  fix  our  eyes  upon  the  shovel,  and 
poise  ourselves  for  the  last  move.  The  next 
instant  we,  and  the  coals,  and  the  shovel,  and 
the  bed  would  be  all  mixed  up  together. 

I've  heard  of  the  people  going  into  raptures 
over  beds  of  coal.  We  slept  in  one  every  night 
and  were  not  in  the  least  stuck  up   about   it. 

But  our  attic,  unique  though  it  was,  had  by 
no  means  exhausted  the  architect's  sense  of 
humor.  'The  arrangement  of  the  whole  house 
was  a  marvel  of  originality.  All  the  doors 
opened  outward,  so  that  if  any  one  wanted  to 
leave  a  room  at  the  same  moment  that  you 
were  coming  downstairs  it  was  unpleasant  for 
you.  There  was  no  ground-floor — its  ground- 
floor  belonged  to  a  house  in  the  next  court, 
and  the  front  door  opened  direct  upon  a  flight 
of  stairs  leading  down  to  the  cellar.  Visitors 
on   entering  the  house  would    suddenly  shoot 


G  IDLE   THOUGHTS 

past  the  person  who  had  answered  the  door 
to  them  and  disappear  down  these  stairs. 
Those  of  a  nervous  temperament  used  to  im- 
agine that  it  was  a  trap  laid  for  them.  an:l 
would  shout  murder  as  they  lay  on  their  backs 
at  the  bottom  till  somebody  came  and  picked 
them    up. 

It  is  a  long  time  ago  now  that  I  last  saw  the 
Inside  of  an  attic.  I  have  tried  various  floors 
since,  but  I  have  not  found  that  they  have 
made  much  difference  to  me.  Life  tastes  much 
the  same,  whether  we  quaff  it  from  a  golden 
goblet  or  drink  it  out  of  a  stone  mug.  The 
liours  come  laden  with  the  same  mixture  of 
joy  and  sorrovv-,  no  m.atter  where  we  wait  for 
them.  A  waistcoat  of  broadcloth  or  of  fustian 
is  alike  to  an  aching  heart,  and  we  laugh  no 
merrier  on  velvet  cushions  than  we  did  on 
wooden  chairs.  Often  have  I  sighed  in  those 
low-ceilinged  rooms,  yet  disappointments  have 
come  neither  less  nor  lighter  since  I  quitted 
them.  Life  works  upon  a  compensating  bal- 
ance, and  the  happiness  we  gain  in  one  direc- 
tion we  lose  in  another.  As  our  means  in- 
crease, so  do  our  desires;  and  we  ever  stand 
midway  between  the  two.  "When  we  reside  in 
an  attic  we  enjoy  a  supper  of  fried  fish  and 
stout.  When  we  occupy  the  first  floor  it  takes 
an  elaborate  dinner  at  the  Continental  to  give 
us  the  same  amount  of  satisfaction. 


